Page 15 - Chuck Redpath News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Springfield's 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 years. It took the better part of an afternoon, and a jackhammer, to extricate me. Firefighters were th...

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 up Ward 3,” he said Tuesday night. Williams is president of the Faith Coalition for the Common Go...

Springfield Fire Chief Brandon Blough said he will continue to look at the department's budget in light of an amendment that trimmed away $1.4 million last week and Mayor Jim Langfelder's 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 about the reality of personnel cuts. Blough said about the meeting with the mayor that there were ...

Nearly half of the Springfield Fire Department's 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 Turner. Turner was selected by the 48th Legislative District Committee on Feb. 6 to fill Sen. Andy Mana...