High-Speed Rail Way Plan

The Union Pacific Railroad is suggesting the city of Springfield close five rail crossings and build nine overpasses and one underpass along a 4.4-mile stretch that cuts through the heart of downtown.

During a meeting with The State Journal-Register editorial board Wednesday, Mayor Tim Davlin summed up how the proposal would transform Springfield: “The whole city would look like crap.”

Local officials are battling plans to route high-speed trains and additional freight trains along the Third Street rail corridor. The group has urged that the trains be diverted instead to the 10th Street corridor.

Under the Union Pacific’s proposal to accommodate the additional rail traffic, overpasses would be built over tracks at Fifth Street, Union Street, Carpenter Street, Madison Street, Jefferson Street, Cook Street, Lawrence Avenue, South Grand Avenue and Ash Street, according to a recently released report by the Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission. An underpass is suggested at Fourth Street.

City officials estimate each overpass and underpass could cost at least $15 million. Each overpass would require 800 feet of ramp on each side of the rail line center, or 1,600 feet in total length, end-to-end.

Federal stimulus money would help cover most costs, they said.

Access problems

However, the overpasses could block access to dozens of homes and businesses -- and even the historic Dana-Thomas House at Fourth Street and Lawrence Avenue, which no longer would be visible from the south, according to the report. Some properties would lose all access and probably would have to be purchased by the city, according to the report.

Artist renderings showing concrete barriers sitting in front of historic homes, structures and businesses in Springfield are being distributed by the Enos Park Neighborhood Improvement Association.

Railroad spokesman Mark Davis said the proposals were intended to “stimulate discussion with the city regarding any mitigation that would take place on the Third Street corridor.”

Overpasses are suggested at both Jefferson and Madison streets, two streets close enough to each other that the overpasses would create “significant access problems,” according to the report. Those overpasses would close off access to six or seven commercial properties, the report said.

The Isringhausen auto dealership in downtown Springfield could lose access to its showrooms on two blocks, and its street visibility would be lost, according to the report.

Geoff Isringhausen said that would be devastating to his business.

A car dealership is like a billboard — people see the vehicles from the street and come inside, he said.

“To block that visibility would be a real setback,” he said.

‘Quiet zones’

Barriers would regulate auto traffic at six other intersections -- Washington, Adams, Monroe, Scarritt, Cedar and Laurel streets. Those intersections would be designated “quiet zones,” at which trains would be prohibited from sounding their horns.

The railroad also suggests closing crossings at Ridgely Street, Eastman Avenue, Jackson Street, Canedy Street and Allen Street, Davlin said some types of barriers will be needed no matter whether the extra passenger and freight trains will be on Third Street or 10th Street. But fewer would be needed along 10th Street.

He also said he’d rather see traffic get backed up downtown than put an overpass or underpass near the Dana-Thomas House.

“If it goes on Third Street, we’re choked up there,” he said. “Just avoid Lawrence. Use, hopefully, South Grand or Capitol, because you can’t ruin the Dana-Thomas House by putting an overpass or underpass there.”

Underpasses more costly

Underpasses along Third Street would be even more expensive than overpasses because the city’s main sewer line runs near Third Street and would have to be relocated.

The federal government has approved $8 billion in economic stimulus money to establish high-speed rail service nationwide, including along the St. Louis-Chicago route in Illinois. The Union Pacific line, which shares its track with Amtrak, runs through Springfield along the Third Street corridor.

Davlin and other leaders have emphasized they support high-speed rail in Springfield.

“It’s only this four-mile stretch that we see as a real problem,” he said.

Davlin noted that Bloomington-Normal and Pontiac also have some issues, but “nothing runs through the heart of a community or the heart of the medical district like what we’re seeing here.”

Local officials hire attorney

Unable to get the ear of state and federal officials, a contingent of local leaders has hired an attorney to evaluate their options in fighting a proposal to increase the number of trains along the Third Street corridor.

“The great irony of this is we’re a community that the president of the United States could call his third hometown,” said Andy Van Meter, chairman of the Sangamon County Board. “We have one of the most powerful United States senators living here. The secretary of transportation just happens to have represented this community and worked on this very issue not nine months ago. The governor of the state supposedly lives here, but we can’t get anybody to listen.”

Van Meter, Mayor Tim Davlin and several other local officials met with members of The State Journal-Register editorial board Wednesday. The group is pushing for a study of the impact, cost and viability of their preferred option of consolidating rail traffic at 10th Street.

They also say an updated environmental impact study is needed for Third Street, because it doesn’t take into account the increased freight traffic or putting two railroad tracks along the Third Street corridor.

The Union Pacific Railroad Co. plans to use federal stimulus money to lay an additional track along Third Street as a part of the high-speed rail plan.

“We’re convinced if that EIS was done on 10th Street, 10th Street is the only alternative,” he said.

Reached later in the day, Illinois Department of Transportation officials said it’s too late for a new environmental impact study.

“If these deadlines are not met, Illinois will lose the opportunity to be awarded some of the 8 billion dollars which are being made available nationwide for high speed rail,” IDOT Secretary Gary Hannig said through a spokeswoman. “The IDOT cannot complete a new EIS in enough time to submit the high-speed rail project applications to the federal government.”

IDOT also contended that the environmental study on the Third Street route isn’t outdated.
“From a legal perspective, once an EIS is obtained and work begins, it is not stale and it is a timely and vibrant document,” Hannig said.

The Union Pacific has concluded the Third Street line would be the least expensive and fastest route for trains traveling up to 110 mph.

Davlin said the proposal to run additional freight trains on the route is “piggybacking high-speed rail.”

IDOT officials also noted that UP has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in an intermodal facility near Joliet, which will allow more freight trains on the company’s tracks in Illinois.

“These freight trains will operate on the same track, whether Illinois is awarded high-speed rail funds or not,” Hannig said. “Freight trains operate under different speed constraints than passenger trains.

The city, county, and the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce’s Q5 jobs initiative have retained Milt Sees, former IDOT secretary, to serve as a consultant.

-- Deana Poole

Next week

The Illinois Commerce Commission’s Transportation Policy Committee will host a policy briefing next week on the proposed high-speed rail corridor from Chicago to St. Louis

The meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Hearing Room A of the ICC’s Springfield office, 527 E. Capitol Avenue.

Among those scheduled to speak are Michael Payette, assistant vice president of governmental affairs for the Union Pacific Railroad and Mike Garcia, railroad engineering unit chief at the Illinois Department of Transportation.

TO VIEW THE MAP FOR THE RAIL WAYS CLICK HERE

By Deana Poole
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

National Guard soldiers return from Afghanistan

A year ago Wednesday, Lt. Col. Mark Brewer said goodbye to his wife, Janet, and their four children and boarded a bus to Kansas. In November, he left for Afghanistan.
When Brewer and seven other Illinois Army National Guard soldiers arrived at Camp Lincoln on Wednesday, he was greeted by his 6-year-old daughter, Analise, throwing her arms around his neck.

“She said earlier in the car that she wants to give him a big hug and not let him go,” said Brewer’s wife, Janet.

The soldiers were eight of about 100 Illinois Army National Guard soldiers serving in the 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team who recently returned to Illinois. The soldiers are part of the largest overseas deployment of Illinois National Guardsmen since World War II. The deployment included 30 units from throughout the state.

Apart from two weeks in April, the family hadn’t seen Mark Brewer all year, Janet Brewer said.

They said they made it through with a lot of support from family and friends at West Side Christian Church, where they were headed after Thursday’s welcome home ceremony at Camp Lincoln.

“Probably the hardest thing was not being able to call him on the phone whenever I wanted,” Janet Brewer said.

She and Mark talked on the telephone once a week and were able to e-mail each other daily. However, because of where Brewer was stationed in Afghanistan, he wasn’t allowed to use a Web cam.

The Brewers’ 8-year-old son, Dillon, said he is excited to be able to play baseball and golf again with his father. Daughters Emily, 19, and Katie, 17, said they were just excited to see him back.
“This was unbelievable,” Mark Brewer said of the welcome home ceremony. “I didn’t think the day would ever come.”

Brewer described his year in Afghanistan as “the longest year and the shortest year at the same time.”

“It’s a humbling feeling to come back to a ceremony like this,” he said.

In Afghanistan, some of the soldiers formed Police Mentor Teams that trained Afghan National Police, according to the Illinois Army and Air National Guard. The teams also conducted patrols and security missions with the Afghan National Police.

Other groups formed teams that trained the Afghan National Army, according to the Illinois Army and Air National Guard. Four soldiers were killed in action during the units’ deployment in Afghanistan.

Those returning included soldiers from Troop A, 2nd Battalion, 106th Cavalry in Pontiac; Troop B, 2nd Battalion, 106th Cavalry in Dixon; Troop C, 2nd Battalion, 106th Cavalry in Aurora; Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 106th Cavalry in Kewanee; Joint Force Headquarters in Springfield; and soldiers from various units with the 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry.

By R. Saunders

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

City ready to fight 3rd St. high-speed rail plan

Springfield aldermen and Mayor Tim Davlin Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution opposing plans for high-speed rail and additional freight traffic along Third Street.

The city is prepared to fight the idea in court and is urging the Union Pacific Railroad to look again at the 10th Street corridor as a better route for high-speed rail, according to the resolution.

“I want to make this statement perfectly clear: Nobody is opposed to high-speed rail,” Davlin said during Tuesday’s city council meeting. “We want high-speed rail in our city. It’s just where that’s going to be located is where we have the biggest concern.

“Evidently, from everything I’m hearing from around the state, we’re the one community that’s impacted the most,” Davlin said. “Probably 99 percent of all the impact is right here in Springfield.”

Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards said a non-binding resolution isn’t enough.

“We need an all-out fight,” he said.

Edwards said the city needs to “drag our U.S. Senator (Democrat Dick Durbin) into this fight.”
“This is his hometown,” Edwards said. “We need to know where he stands. We need to have him in the fight with us.”

Durbin has not taken a position on Third Street vs. 10th Street, but has urged Davlin and Sangamon County Board Chairman Andy Van Meter to meet with the railroad executives to examine the impact of additional train traffic.

Davlin said community leaders are giving Durbin information on the consequences to the city.

“(Durbin’s) told me personally that he thinks he needs to see all the information that’s available,” Davlin said after the meeting. “He only has a certain amount of influence that he can put on those railways. We just have to make sure whatever we propose is something that perhaps both of them can live with.”

Steve Combs, president of the Enos Park Neighborhood Improvement Association, thanked the council for the resolution and urged members to get Durbin involved.

“This train has been to Springfield and it’s gone,” Combs said. “The fight now is past IDOT. It’s past Union Pacific … the fight now, unfortunately is at that federal level.”

The resolution, sponsored by Ward 6 Ald. Mark Mahoney and Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman, calls the Third Street proposal “devastating to downtown Springfield, adjacent neighborhoods and the city in general because of the negative impact on future growth and revitalization.”

“This city has spent years trying to revitalize downtown,” Cahnman said. “We’ve finally gotten to the point where it’s a vibrant area, filled with commerce and tourists. This is just going to devastate the downtown area.”

By DEANA POOLE
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

Congratulations Paris Cleaners of Springfield IL

A commitment to customers and the environment, an unbeatable work ethic and a promise to always buy American products are some of the reasons Paris Cleaners Inc. is celebrating 100 years in business.

Any day of the week David and Shep Franke, co-presidents of Paris Cleaners, are at work at the plant at 1013 E. Ash St. “Seven days a week,” said Shep Franke, “I couldn’t’ see doing it any other way or doing anything else.” Although he did add that as a concession to his wife, he tries to spend holidays at home.

In 1909, Shep and David’s great-great-grandfather, Carl David, and Carl David’s brother, Franz Franke, opened Paris City Cleaners and Furriers. He called it “Paris” because that’s where dry cleaning was invented, explained David Franke: “It was elegant and fashionable.”

David Franke handles the computer work, and Shep Franke is “the fixer of all things machine.” David Franke said if his relatives walked into the dry-cleaning plant right now, they could pitch right in.Shep Franke said even though the machines are old, they work extremely well, and it’s really not that hard to find parts. A labyrinth of belts and cables snakes around the top of the back room where the cleaning machines and dryers are located; the belt drive system is used to run everything in the cleaning plant.

“It still works,” said Shep Franke, and he starts the system up. In the front room, an equally complicated set of metalwork moves the clothes around the room to where each employee performs a set function.

Bedraggled blouses get new life and sagging suit coats regain their professional edge. Although the machines that look like an ironing board with a metal press on top look simple, the look is deceiving.

The green monstrosities — green paint was on sale, Shep Franke said with a deadpan look on his face — are very complicated.

“You control the weight of the press to put the crease on, the amount of steam, the amount of time of the pressing,” David Franke said, “all with a set of levers and foot pedals.”

Suit coats go through a number of steps after they are cleaned to get them back in shape. They are shaped on a form, buttoned and steamed, the back vent is folded just so, tamped down and steamed, and the shoulders are reset. David Franke showed how the job is done with an economy of motion that indicates he could probably clean and press in his sleep.

“Someone calls in sick, I step in,” said David Franke. “If the customer is promised their cleaning will be ready, it is ready just like it was 100 years ago.”

The dedication to the customer is evident in the company history. A fur storage vault once stayed open 24 hours a day with a watchman so customers could pick up their furs any time, wear them and then return them.

The Frankes subscribe to “buy American” with an admirable fervor. David Franke searched far and wide for American-made products and machinery to keep the plant going.

One of those items is a recyclable “green” garment bag. In the early days cleaning was returned on wooden hangers with twisted wire to form the loop. Clothes were wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, then placed in paper wrappers on hangers and then in paper wrappers with the company’s polar bear logo, which is also visible in relief on the front and side of the building.

Then the clothes were encased in plastic slip covers on hangers.

“We got something where we could measure off the exact amount of plastic needed, but that still means something is being used and then wasted,” David Franke said. The “green” garment bag can be purchased for a one-time cleaning fee, and each time clothes are brought in, they can be hauled for cleaning in a drawstring bag, which is actually the garment bag turned upside down.

“It is then returned to the customer, cleaned and with clean clothing inside and hung up,” said David Franke. “It’s really catching on.”

The patriotism of the Frankes’ grandparents meant the company stayed open during World War II but changed direction a little bit.

“Grandpa Franke, in an effort to conserve petroleum for the war effort, closed down the cleaning part of the company, but he kept the business office and the fur storage business open,” David Franke said.

The company’s commitment to safeguarding the environment extends to the cleaning operation. Since the Frankes opened they’ve used petroleum-based cleaning solution rather then perchloroethylene — or perc — which became popular in the mid-1930s. With a propensity to cause skin irritation if dry-cleaned clothing is worn right after cleaning as well as a nose-tickling noxious smell, perc has fallen out of favor with other dry-cleaning establishments.

While some things change at Paris Cleaners — for instance, the large vault used to house expensive furs now holds beautiful wedding dresses, too — the commitment to family, history and customers stays the same. “We made it through the first 100 years,” Shep Franke said with a grin, “the next 100 will be a breeze.”

Paris CleanersParis Cleaners has four locations:
540 W. Monroe St.
910 South Grand Ave. W.
2623 West White Oaks Drive
1013 E. Ash St.

In addition to dry cleaning, everything from preservation of wedding dresses to military uniforms can be saved along with other memorabilia. In addition, David Franke III said a process perfected by is wife, Marika, is used to restore dresses as well as linens. Check the Web site, http://www.parisdrycleaners.com/, for more information.

Lucky 13

Throughout the years, the slogans originally coined by Carl David Franke Sr. for the cleaners as well as the iconic polar bear, have stood the test of time.

Gradually, Paris City Dry Cleaning Co. became Paris Cleaners and Furriers and then Paris Cleaners. The polar bear adorned some of the first paper covers for clean clothes, and now it guards the plant on Ash Street.

“Woven into the fabric of our city,” Paris Cleaners also used the slogan of “Everything back ’cept the dirt!” And then there’s the whole “13” campaign.

Grandfather Carl David Franke was one of 13 children, explains Shep Franke, co-president of Paris Dry Cleaners.

He and Shep and David’s father, C. David Franke Jr., were both born on a Friday the 13th. The original address of Paris City Dry Cleaners is 313 Monroe St. The address of the Ash Street plant is 1013 E. Ash St.,

The first phone number was Capitol 13. So one of the slogans was “Capitol 13 — unlucky for spots.”

By Kathleen Ostrander
Springfield Business News

Replace Frannie and Freddie?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A mortgage industry group wants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac replaced with private companies that would be able to issue mortgage bonds formally backed by the federal government.

The Mortgage Bankers Association's proposal, released Wednesday, offers a detailed plan for how to restructure the U.S. mortgage market, which has been torn apart by the housing bust.
The Obama administration doesn't expect to announce its plans for the two companies until early next year. It has listed several options, including merging them into a federal agency, shutting them down, or have their bad mortgage assets split into a new government-backed company.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or guarantee about $5.4 trillion in mortgage debt and have needed about $96 billion in federal aid since they were seized by federal regulators last fall. The companies' debt is not officially backed by the federal government, but has been effectively guaranteed since the takeover.

The mortgage bankers' plan would replace Fannie and Freddie with several federally regulated private companies known as Mortgage Credit Guarantor Entities (nicknamed "McGees"). They would buy loans and sell them as bonds with their own guarantee attached, and would pay the government a fee for its backing.

For investor confidence to return to the market for mortgage-backed securities, "there has to be an explicit government backstop," said John Courson, the trade group's president.

Fannie and Freddie could be restructured into the new companies, but they would have to shed their bad mortgage assets first, possibly in the form of a government-owned "bad bank." Major banks like Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., could also take up this role, provided they create separate subsidiaries to do so.

While Fannie and Freddie made massive bets on mortgages and associated derivatives, their replacements would only be able to have a minimal investment portfolio, according to the mortgage bankers' plan.

Fannie and Freddie in the past had powerful lobbying operations, but are no longer allowed to lobby the government. That opens up the debate to more far-reaching reforms, and is an opportunity for Fannie and Freddie's rivals to pick up business.

"It's an opportunity to take a blank sheet of paper and create a system that will avoid some of the issues that we've had in the past years," Courson said.

Jaret Seiberg, an analyst at Washington Research Group, said in a research note that the "odds are high for enactment" for the Mortgage Bankers Association's proposal or something similar, partly because formal government backing for mortgage securities should keep mortgage rates low.

By ALAN ZIBEL AP Real Estate Writer

Little Flower School gets $1 million donation

A $1 million donation recently given to Little Flower School has a lot in common with a large donation Sacred Heart-Griffin received in 2006.

Each gift was anonymous and for the same amount. Each was made in honor of Sister Mary Pauletta Overbeck, the first principal of Little Flower. Each is to be used for tuition assistance and scholarships. Each came at the start of a new school year.

For Little Flower, the timing was perfect.

“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Little Flower principal Carissa Cantrell. “We are up huge amounts in enrollment. It’s such a good time to be at Little Flower.”

Enrollment at Little Flower, 900 Stevenson Drive, jumped from 257 last year to 300 this year. Cantrell said interest from the gift will allow the school to provide 50-percent tuition breaks to as many as 50 students a year. Individual tuition at Little Flower is $2,400 a year.

“He or she is going to affect so many kids with this gift,” Cantrell said.

With tuition needs essentially covered for years, Cantrell said, the school can turn its attention to other pressing needs.

“We can now continue to grow programming, our curriculum, our technology. Our wish lists can now be covered.”

Cantrell said she doesn’t know the giver’s identity. She learned about the donation only recently, when Little Flower’s pastor, Rev. Msgr. John Ossola, brought her the news.

“Father Ossola came to me and said, ‘I have something to tell you. I think we have a million-dollar donation for tuition. Let’s have a meeting.’”

Sister Overbeck knows. But she’s too speechless to give the secret away.

Overbeck, 94, a resident of Sacred Heart Convent, said she has known the giver of the two donations for years. A student of hers decades ago, the donor, who lives in a modest home, continues to keep in touch, she said.

“It’s a beautiful story. This person has kept in touch all of these years, no matter where, no matter what. I am just deeply humbled,” she said. “Just this fall again, I got a thank-you note from a mother whose child received a scholarship from Sacred-Heart Griffin.”

She knew the Little Flower donation was in the works. But she wasn’t aware of the amount until The State Journal-Register asked her how she felt about it.

“I’m just a bit baffled. I don’t know what to say — oh Lord, I am not worthy,” Overbeck said.

Overbeck entered the Dominican Sisters convent in 1932 and taught at Cathedral Grade School in the 1930s before founding Little Flower in 1948. She stayed there for 27 years and then went on to direct religious education in parishes throughout Illinois, Minnesota and California.

She came back to the area in 1980. While a broken hip has slowed her down a bit, she still works, handling correspondence and secretarial duties for the Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems.

As far as donations to schools go, the Springfield Catholic Diocese’s finance office isn’t aware of any others this size in recent years, said diocesan spokeswoman Kathie Sass.

By PETE SHERMAN

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

Early applications available for Illinois heating help

Gov. Pat Quinn says Illinois families and residents eligible for winter heating assistance should apply early for the federally funded program.

Early applications for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program will be available beginning Tuesday. Quinn says he encourage eligible residents to apply so "they can stay safe, warm and healthy this winter."

Under the program, heating bill payments are made to utilities on behalf of households. In Illinois, households earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible.
The governor's office says this year the program is expected to spend $150 million to aid 300,000 households this winter. More information is available by calling 1-877-411-WARM.

The Associated Press