Page 8 - Chuck Redpath News Today

Springfields committee of the whole sent through to the full city council ordinances on maternity/paternity leave and a proposed sports complex.

When it comes to fire departments, I have street cred. I am junior fire chief emeritus for Elmhurst Elementary School. My yearlong reign, won by virtue of writing an essay on how to survive house fires, stretched from 1973 to 1974. For a solid week, a fire engine, siren blaring, picked me up at home and delivered me to school each day. Before that, I was a victim, having stuck my leg down a drainpipe at a demolished laundromat after wandering from the mobile home where I spent formative yea...

City of Springfield The Springfield City Council rejected the mayor’s nominee to fill the Ward 3 vacancy on the council, despite support from faith and community leaders. Some council members were concerned Roy Williams, Jr., the mayor’s choice, declined to say if he’d run for election in two years. Williams said he wanted to focus on the job for the first year before deciding on whether to run for a full term in 2023. “I want to spend this time dealing with the violence and cleaning...

Springfield Fire Chief Brandon Blough said he will continue to look at the departments budget in light of an amendment that trimmed away $1.4 million last week and Mayor Jim Langfelders call to hold the line on any layoffs. Langfelder and Blough met with city budget director Bill McCarty, Corporation Counsel Jim Zerkle, SFD operations chief Jeph Bassett and other personnel Tuesday ahead of the city council meeting. On Monday, Blough said he visited several fire houses to talk to firefighters ...

Nearly half of the Springfield Fire Departments operating budget was slashed Tuesday and the Springfield City Council added on eight amendments that directly affected the Fiscal Year 2022 corporate fund budget before giving its final approval on a 9-1 vote. That vote capped a nearly four-and-a-half-hour evening that started with a Committee of the Whole meeting then went to a public hearing session before the special city council meeting. It was also the last meeting for Ward 3 Ald. Doris Turne...

By WMAY Newsroom (Kyle Hutchinson / Mid-West Family Broadcasting) The Springfield City Council has voted to trim $1.4 million from the proposed fire department budget. Alderman Chuck Redpath proposed the across-the-board reduction, noting that fire department costs have outpaced both the police and public works departments in recent years. Budget director Bill McCarty says without adjusting those trends, the city won’t be able to keep pace with those expenses in future years without d...

Springfield's fire chief says he will try to be "creative," but isn't sure how he will be able to implement a ...

A Springfield alderman says officials from Chicago have no business telling police how to clean up their depar...

The Springfield City Council passed an ordinance authorizing a development agreement with the Springfield Park District for improvements in parks in the Enos Park and Madison Park tax-increment financing districts during a special meeting Tuesday. The final adoption came with an amendment: The park district wont get money from the city until it makes improvements on the parks, and the money doled out will be on a project-by-project basis. The amendment further limited the park district to s...

Bar, restaurant owners, employees protest outside Governors Mansion Brenden Moore State Journal-Register Keith Loukinen has had perhaps the best view of the Illinois Governor’s Mansion of any restaurateur since opening his fine dining establishment across the street in 2017.  But on Saturday, Loukinen, in his full chef uniform, made the short walk to the front of the mansion to join about 100 bar and restaurant owners, employees and patrons to protest the mitigations put in place by Gov. JB ...