Springfield Commissioners Meeting Explodes As Divide Between Officials and Public Continues.

BY JEFF SKINNER 

SPRINGFIELD - On Tuesday, October 7, The Springfield city commissioners met to hear another report from law enforcement on why a new jail facility is needed. After listening to the Clark County Sheriff state he felt the city was not safe enough to allow his family to shop at Walmart without him escorting them while armed, residents took to the public comments to illustrate why they felt that was, leading to contentious legal threats from a member of the commissioners and an outright denial of previous commission actions.

During his presentation, Sheriff Christopher Clark, who joined into the presentation later due to other appointments, stated that he felt the jail center is desperately needed as criminals are not being held accountable to the fullest extent possible due to a lack of space. As such he feels it necessary to accompany his family on standard grocery errands as an ‘armed escort’ as he does not feel the city is safe currently. 

Many residents within the city agree with the assessment, but have struggled to illustrate to the commissioners and city leadership, their opinion that the bulk of the issue seems to be stemming from the large population influx contributing to things like auto accidents, injuries, thefts and illegal night club operations. Ultimately, the public sentiment is that the Springfield judicial system failing to prosecute individuals of crimes that would lead to deportations, thus mitigating the need for a jail.

TOR has previously reported on the numerous instances of Haitian immigrants who are not prosecuted fully for things like misdemeanor crimes that would lead to their deportation. The deportations, according to some members of the public, would decrease the need for the new jail.

During the public comment portion, members of the public voiced concerns over what has admittedly turned into a financial and public relations disaster for the city, that being the acceptance of 12-20,000 Haitian migrants through the TPS system and the partnering of the city with Carl Ruby's Welcomespringfield.org nonprofit. Members of the public accused members of the commissioners of ignoring their voices, mishandling government funds and allowing the Welcome Springfield initiative to effectively ruin the city. This led to Commissioners David Estrop threatening legal action against one member of the public for the allegations and commissioner Bridget Houston denying the city ever organized with the Welcome Springfield initiative, which is counterfactual. 

According to Houston, the City of Springfield never completed the required paperwork to be listed as a “Welcoming City” on the official website. However during this attempt at correcting the public comments, other members of the commissioner attempted to intervene and stop Houston from misstepping.

Despite claims from Houston, the Springfield city Commissioners approved a resolution in 2014 to adopt the Welcome Springfield initiative principles and take measures to promote immigrant integration. The city had, prior to this action, already been working closely with Welcomespringfield.org’s Carl Ruby, who was using the initiative to push population replacement, arguing declining demographics mandated an immigration influx. While Commissioner agendas prior to 2020 are not available online, enough literature and reporting still exists to corroborate the passing of the resolution as of July 2014.

Commissioner Krystal Brown attempted to correct and redirect Houston, by saying the city is not a ‘sanctuary’ city, a claim none are making or have made, but has seemingly served as an attempted deterrent to investigate the overarching direction from Welcome Initiative over the city.

The public has attempted to stress that partnering with an organization like The Welcome Initiative, which has stated goals of facilitating economic migration to replace the heritage populations of the rustbelt, has had net negative consequences. According to some, Carl Ruby’s group encouraged policies of Immigrant Economic Development, first with illegal immigrants from Mexico in 2014, even encouraging them to invest their ‘vast wealth of capital’ into property management. The county commissioners then formed a landbank to better facilitate access to millions in federal tax dollars and subsidies for building new homes for the planned influx of migrants and provided tax abatements for new businesses and developers who were looking at the prospect of extremely cheap, federally subsidized labor.

Whether or not the city finalized any background paperwork to, as the resolution states, 'join Columbus and Dayton in the Global Great Lakes and Welcoming America' initiatives, the resolution decreed they would and the actions of the city leadership all point to the fact that they are adhering to it anyways.

While the strategy of forming public-private partnerships has often become a passe strategy to avoid government accountability, it has become a fallback of the commissioners of late, up to and including the dissolution of the SCAT public transportation system for the micro-transit Field Trip operation, which employs unskilled Haitian drivers with disastrous results.

As one member of the public commented, drivers are failing to adhere to basic rules of the road and skirting accountability. If the SCAT system was still under jurisdiction of the city, the commissioners would have the authority to intervene, but as they "ceded responsibility" of public transit to Field Trips, they can now agree with the publics outrage and feign impotence.