Collette seeks community-centered government

Mary Collette is a municipal government veteran, having served two terms on Springfield City Council from 2001-09.

She said she perceives a change in the city. Asked to give it a label, she called it angst.

“It’s citizens not feeling listened to or a part of the process,” she said. “I’m running as a neighbor; I’m running as a citizen. My goal is to make Springfield a more social city. Everything else will spring out of that.”

Collette said residents of the city want to feel that their voices are being heard.

“You can have all the economic development in the world, but if you have a city full of people who don’t like their government or don’t feel represented, anyone you attract to Springfield won’t stay long,” she said.

Collette said her proudest contributions during her time on council were giving residents more access to government and establishing tax incentives, including community improvement district and tax increment financing district status, on the city’s north side. She also helped to establish the SAAFHouse Spay & Neuter Clinic, which she said has resulted in some 80,000 surgeries to date.

Collette has modeled her sense of community on Commercial Street, where she said the merchants, property owners and residents are a family.

“We talk amongst ourselves about what’s missing up here, and we have been building Commercial Street literally like one person, one business, one restaurant, one property owner, even, at a time. I think you can see the results of that. We have built a really special place,” she said.

C-Street still has needs, Collette said – and that’s one reason she considers transit a key issue.

“I don’t know what the answer is, but I know there has to be a better system than what we’ve got right now,” she said.

She added that she would like to visit with City Utilities of Springfield officials before the election to figure out how to get community input on transit, and she would also encourage public-private partnerships to meet transit needs.

“As a proud Springfieldian who loves her community, I want to be able to sell Springfield as a market that has a good, reliable, easy and fun transit system – it can be more attractive and appealing to people,” she said.

Acting together
Collette said what she has to offer is her experience, both on C-Street and on council, her creativity and a knack for encouraging collaboration.

“We have a very friendly city. Every city can’t claim that, and that’s something we should build on and make citizens feel proud that that’s who we are,” she said. “I want to see us promote ourselves like that and create environments where we can bring even more people together.”

Neighborhoods are the right vehicle for collaboration, she said. “I would like to give our neighborhoods more ownership of their parks and program more activities in there – give them the resources to do more,” she said.

She added that increased density is coming, and neighborhood residents should weigh in on what they want that to look like.

“Then when developers are looking around, if every single neighborhood could say, ‘We’d like to develop this area, we have a couple of nuisance properties, we have some vacant lots and this is a perfect area for an enclosed mixed-use apartment,’” she said, noting that could be a smoother path to growth.

Collette advocates mixed-use nodes like Commercial Street, the commercial node at Pickwick Avenue and Cherry Street, and the mixed-use developments at Galloway Village – what city planners refer to as soft cities, she said.

“Perhaps that would be something that the folks in University Heights would be able to live with,” she said, referring to a contested corner of Sunshine Street and National Avenue, where neighbors and developers have been on tenterhooks awaiting a court decision on a zoning change to make way for a proposed mixed-use property by BK&M LLC.

Collette said ideas about sensitive neighborhood infill development and urban sprawl are not new to her. She pulled out campaign materials from 2001 and 2005 showing similar platforms about the importance of preserving neighborhoods while making way for careful growth. She pointed to a postcard: “‘Give all neighborhoods a stronger voice and access to more resources. Make government ever more accessible, responsive and accountable. Slow urban sprawl through sensitive infill, maximizing existing infrastructure.’ This was from 2001,” she said.

Other priorities
Collette said communication is key to everything in the city, and it would be her priority to ensure that public meetings are at accessible hours and places and that input is sought neighborhood by neighborhood on issues of importance to residents. On contentious issues, council should have public hearings in neighborhoods instead of allowing three minutes for comments during a meeting, she said.

“Citizens need to be treated as collaborators in the process, and not merely consumers,” she said.

Asked about how to attract more development – and what type of businesses to target – Collette said north Springfield is ripe for development, particularly with grocers.

“The city needs to attract business,” she said. “I think you attract business by profiling your workforce. We have a very productive workforce, but if they were happier and felt more satisfied with their government, that would be a really wonderful economic development tool.”

She added that arts and culture should also be boosted as low-hanging fruit for tourism.

Asked if she supports the outlawing of electronic gaming machines in the city, Collette offered an unequivocal yes.

“I am thrilled that city council voted to not allow them. I’m sorry, but I think gambling is a scourge of the common man. You see the impact pretty quickly when it comes into communities,” she said.

As for retailers with gaming machines losing their business and liquor licenses, Collette said, “If that’s the decision that they make, then that’s the decision that they make.”

Collette said she knows the mechanics of the city and can – and will – hit the ground running.

“I want to build on what we do have, because I’m not one to tear it down,” she said. “I want to take the infrastructure that’s here and take all the best part of them and enhance them.”