Mayor’s Row…………….by Ned Mitchell

            Just about the time I thought things could not possibly get any worse in Springfield it appears like it is heading in that direction.  Last week Speaker of the House Michael Madigan was speaking before a firefighters group and proclaimed that the top three democrats are in a “civil war” and that “no prisoners” would be taken

If you will remember last year Speaker Madigan had an agreement with Senate President Emil Jones that the two of them would override any veto that the reformer/unreformer Governor signed and both Senate and House members would have their way.  When push came to shove Jones went back on his word and committed a cardinal sin that in recent history had not been done among Springfield leaders.  The fight has been on ever since with Madigan recently stating that Jones only gets “one big lie.”

According the “Capitol Fax” publication a lot of this is brought on by the Governor firing the wife of Madigan’s chief of staff, fired a Madigan ally as a lobbyist for the Illinois Finance Authority, slashed the budget for the Illinois Arts Council that is headed up by Madigan’s wife, and then during last year’s state fair the Governor bused in protestors to boo and heckle Madigan during his annual speech to party faithful.

On top of all of this last week the “outsider” duo of former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and former Congressman and now President of SIU Glenn Poshard was to meet with all the top legislative leaders and Madigan was a no show.

Senate democrats have a real dilemma on their hands as they don’t know whether to jump off the political cliff with Jones or try to swim upstream and risk political suicide by bucking Jones.  The ones with real worries are those few who face opposition this fall.  Some republicans can be perceived as part of the legislative grid lock in Springfield and all democrats are going to have to answer some pretty blunt questions about their lock step march behind Jones.

Jones, if you will remember engineered his wife into a high paying state job and then got her salary boosted by nearly $70,000 per year.  He has also shuffled state jobs and contracts to just about everybody in his family. 

But wait, it gets worse for the democrats.  Not only is the reformer/unreformer’s chief money bag man Tony Rezko on trial in federal court and major side kick bag man Chris Kelly waiting to be tried, a recent non political poll taken in Illinois shows the Governor’s approval rating is a lousy 13 percent.

Lastly Senator Jones will not even allow his fellow democrats up to this point to even vote on ethics legislation and a recall effort that have already passed the House.  Even if they do vote on the bills they will pass their own version that will not be acceptable to the House members and we will have separate bills passed but at the end of the day we will still have no law that addresses ethics and recall provisions.  What we will have is both Senators and Representatives running up and down the state proclaiming they voted for ethics and recall legislation but their counterparts across the rotunda of the Capitol would not agree with them.  They have played this game for years now.  My question to you is; are you stupid or what?  How long before you wake up and smell the coffee?  On the other hand if you the voters are happy, then you get what you ask for and sometimes that is a bitter pill to swallow but the bottom line is you and I are the only ones who can change the way we operate in Illinois!  Until we send a message we will continue to have more of the same going on.  Legislators serve long enough to get a pension as a Legislator then retire and immediately jump into a high paying appointed state job that more than doubles their pension to some obscene amount.  You and I my friends are responsible for the government we have!

Things are taking shape in Sesser as we kick off our Tax Increment Finance District (TIF).  As you readers know Sesser is the first small town in all of Southern Illinois to form a TIF district.  Twenty years ago Sesser was the first small town anywhere in the area to pass Home Rule.  I predicted at the time that others would follow and today just about everyone has Home Rule.  I now predict that others towns in Franklin County will once again follow our lead and form TIF districts in the near future.

West Frankfort had a TIF district before Sesser but now that we have one up and running others such as Zeigler and Benton are actively getting in the TIF business.  Sesser became the first town to make the whole city a part of the TIF district.  Zeigler is attempting to do the same thing.

No sooner than an article ran in a local newspaper last week than we had calls from four different people wanting to build a new house in Sesser.  We have also talked with two major nationwide home developers who are interested in building homes to sell in Sesser.  We have our sights set on some dilapidated houses in Sesser to tear down this summer and make that land available for new home construction.  This will be a long term program as all of ours have been.

We started asphalting streets 20 years ago with a permanent surface and next year we will finish the last of those streets and at that point all of our city streets will be paved.  Our sidewalk program continues to grow and eventually we will have a network of new sidewalks.  Sesser has one of the most attractive business districts in the area with four new businesses opening in the last year.  It is a real pleasure to work with a City Council that looks beyond personal gain and works together to get things done.

We were fortunate to have the world renowned Cavani string quartet perform at the historic Sesser Opera House last week.  Although the crowd was decent it could have been better.  This was a world class concert with money being raised for music scholarships at SIUC.  The quartet did not charge us anything to perform and donated all of the proceeds to SIUC.  We continue to bring top quality entertainment to Sesser as we slowly make ourselves into the cultural center of Southern Illinois.

Congratulations to Sesser-Valier teacher Dana Laur and her students and their involvement in the Operation Teen Safe Driving program.  These kids decorated windows on Main Street and even came back and cleaned them off after the program was over.  That in itself impressed me to no end.  We sponsored a cheeseburger and fries buffet and the kids performed in the Opera House.  Our kids were selected as a winner in Division 7 of the entire state.  We compete with much larger schools and came away winning in our region.  The only other school in Franklin County to win was Thompsonville.  We are very proud of all of our students but especially proud of this group!