City kicks off Mayor’s Community Conversations series

Karen Craigo | SBJ

Public Works Director Dan Smith had a steady line throughout Friday’s public-facing event.

At Friday night’s first installment of the Mayor’s Community Conversations series, city of Springfield staff donned matching gray polo shirts to help community members spot the people who were hoping to help them.

The event, held at the Northview Center in Doling Park, was the brainchild of City Clerk Anita Cotter, who said she and other city staff began planning for it about 10 months ago. The April 17 event was the first of several planned. This session was targeted at reaching residents in the Tom Watkins, Woodland Heights, Robberson and Doling neighborhoods. Cotter said 63 participants signed in.

Cotter said her first step developing the series was to approach Deputy City Manager Maurice Jones, who had hosted similar sessions during his time in Louisville.

“We ought to do something so we can start rebuilding trust,” she said of her goal behind the idea.

Friday’s event began with brief remarks by Mayor Jeff Schrag, who encouraged attendees to move from station to station to share their needs and concerns. He had a table, as did Cotter and Jones, and another table was staffed by City Councilmember Monica Horton, who immediately left it behind to approach nearly everyone present herself.

Other tables were staffed by directors or assistant directors of departments including the Springfield Police Department, Planning and Development, Building Development Services, Public Works, Health Department and Park Board.

“Not everything will be solved tonight, but everything will be written down, provided to a subject-matter expert and followed up upon,” Schrag said. “Your input helps us do our jobs better.”

Schrag said the night’s goals were simple: to listen and provide a response.

Cotter reaffirmed Schrag’s statement, noting she is committed to the idea that every person who submitted a question, concern or idea would hear back from the city.

“My office is tracking everything, and I’m going to make sure that somebody gets back to everybody, so they know that at least for one time, somebody listened and responded to them,” she said.

While standing in line to speak with the mayor, city resident Colleen Smith said she was representing herself and a friend who couldn’t make it.

“For my friend, I wanted to talk about the bus transportation and walkability in Springfield, but for me it was about family courts, (Child Protective Services) and the law,” Smith said.

She added that she found a conversation with the Police Department representative to be helpful.

Jason Lawrence, president of the Robberson Neighborhood Association, said he wanted to represent his fellow neighborhood residents on issues like the presence of homeless people and the trash they generate. He also had requests for signage to control speed and to watch for children playing.

“I’m trying to push hard – trying to get this neighborhood off the ground,” Lawrence said, noting reaching city leaders directly was key. “It’s not going fast enough, but I have to realize, it takes time.”

Jones said he was looking forward to future events, expecting all neighborhood meetings to be a little bit different, but all with the theme of listening.

“We want to be able to establish that trust – establish that relationship,” he said “Rather than us tell them what we want, they can tell us the things that they need from us. I think it’s going to allow us to find out what we need to do with our own processes and how we can do better.”

Schrag said the comments he heard included the issue of homelessness, with some feeling the city is not giving homeless people enough resources and others say it was giving them too much. He also heard about loose dogs, parking on Commercial Street and parks.

Cotter said she will be mining the data captured during the sessions for issues that come up repeatedly.

“We’ll be looking for trends and recurring themes to determine what needs to be fixed,” she said.

She said results would be put on a website to outline common themes, and everyone will be able to see what steps are being taken as a follow-up.

For Cotter, who started in the clerk’s office in 1996 and has been city clerk since 2015, the event held personal significance.

“I’ve been in the city a long time, and I wanted to do something that would matter,” she said.

The next session will be May 14 for the Brentwood and Oak Grove neighborhoods with a location yet to be named.

Community feedback
In interviews with Springfield Business Journal, department officials offered insights into the comments they were hearing. City officials were overall positive about the event and the conversations held with residents.

Martin Gugel, director of Building Development Services:
Gugel said his department is hard at work on a pilot rental inspection program that kicked off recently in the city’s West Central neighborhood, noting that inspections have been underway for the last three weeks. He added that the pilot program is offering an opportunity to work on bugs that arise.

“Obviously, we’re not slammed yet, but we didn’t expect to be at the beginning,” he said.

Gugel said people were asking him about property-centric topics, like nuisance and blighted properties.

Justin Crighton, assistant director of Planning & Development:
Crighton said he had heard questions about short-term rentals and citywide remapping, plus questions about specific projects.

“It’s always lively, but the implementation of the new code has gone really well,” he said. “There’s been a few hiccups, and we always anticipated it wouldn’t be perfect, but the staff’s done really well, and we’ve been able to navigate almost every obstacle we’ve encountered.”

An example of one of the hiccups is a recent council change to the process associated with driveway access in the new land use code, but Crighton said an appeals process is in place until council continues its review process and he believes the process should work well.

Dan Smith, director of Public Works:
Smith had a steady line throughout the event, which did not surprise him.

“I think Public Works touches everyone,” he said.

Chief concerns were traffic calming, stormwater, sidewalks and alley maintenance.

Asked if the concerns seemed to be actionable, Smith said many appear to be.

“These are such detailed questions that I really need to go back to staff members who can go out and look at it and make sure,” he said.

Ron Schneider, director of parks and recreation for the Springfield-Greene County Park Board:
Schneider said residents asked him about Grant Beach pool, which is likely to be closed this year because of storm damage to its changing facility roof. He said they also inquired about use of park facilities by homeless people, park fees and the lack of a park in Robberson neighborhood.

“That neighborhood is kind of a park desert,” he said. “That’s where our office is, but there’s not a park in Robberson.”

Schneider said the park’s master planning project is moving forward as he goes through responses from a request for quotations from consultants. The project is slated to kick off in July, with a heavy meeting schedule in late summer and fall.

Maj. Tad Peters, Springfield Police Department:
Peters said residents had queries about traffic and speeding.

Asked if the department was ready for an influx of visitors for national Route 66 celebration event this weekend, Peters said it was.

“It’s a big event, but it’s going to be good,” he said.

Jon Mooney, assistant director, Springfield-Greene County Health Department:
Mooney said people approached him about a wide range of topics, from animal control to vaccinations.

He acknowledged that some people experience confusion with health information from recent changes in federal messaging, and he was able to direct the public to a source for help and clarity.

“A lot of what we try to do is to help partner with people to declutter the information to help them make the best decisions for themselves and their families,” he said. Mooney noted that the health department website recently added a Frequently Asked Community Topics page to present information with a goal of providing unbiased clarity to the public.