Galesburg City Council chambers at City Hall.
Mayor Peter Schwartzman says an item he was going to ask be pulled from Monday’s Council agenda will be back on.
Schwartzman told WGIL last week that he was asking that a professional service agreement to design schematics and programs for Churchill Junior High as a community center be pulled to give Council more time to “review and consider.”
But on Saturday he emailed WGIL to say that three Council members want to move forward which is enough to get an item on the agenda.
Schwartzman says that “new information has come forward about a time clock for the project that is tied to the issuance of bonds.”
Council on Monday is also set to finalize the issuance of $5 million in general obligation bonds to help fund a community center.
He says bonds once are issued they have to be spent within 1-2 years, something City Manager Gerald Smith spelled out to Council members in an email last week.
Schwartzman thinks that given delays in building/renovating anything in today’s materials climate, unanticipated time setbacks are expected and that might have motivated the three councilors to expedite the item.
Schwartzman also says feedback from community partners/agencies in the past few days has convinced him that not only is Churchill an ideal location, but the city will likely need to use the entire building.
Schwartzman doesn’t name the three Council members but suspects all of this “new information is what is compelling the Councilors to move forward at this time.”
Schwartzman told WGIL on February 9th that “we’re probably not going to spend a dime on Churchill, in real terms, before the election.”
The contract that could be approved on Monday for Farnsworth Group would be for $76,000 and could set a course for the community center to start construction by September.
Four City Council seats will be decided by April 4th’s elections, which could reshape the views the council has on developing a community center.
