Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for October 6, 2005 CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG?

Evidently not! Today's Southern Illinoisan reports on the town's latest turmoil...

Mayor orders disconnection of Custom House utilities

BY LINDA RUSH, THE SOUTHERN

CAIRO - Cairo Mayor Paul Farris had no comment when asked this week why he'd sent letters last week ordering that all utilities be cut off to the Custom House Museum and the Riverlore mansion "effective immediately."

So far, only phone service has been terminated. But a phone is vital in attracting visitors and assuring security both for workers and exhibits, the volunteers who operate the Custom House Museum said.

Loss of water service, heat or power could endanger many priceless historical documents housed in the Custom House, experts say. Many of those documents are on loan from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, private families and other collections.

In a rambling phone interview Sunday that lasted nearly four hours, Farris assured The Southern he had no plans to close either of the tourist attractions - both of which are owned by the city but operated by the library board - despite targeting the two landmarks during a televised interview last week.

"I'm not gonna lock the place down," he said, adding he'd just told a KFVS12 reporter there was "a possibility" of closing the buildings. He said Sunday his plan was "not exactly to close the Custom House museum, but to trim some of this fat from the budget."

Later, the newspaper learned Farris already had sent the letters ordering the utility service be cut off.

Those letters were dated Sept. 29, last Thursday. Tuesday morning, phone service to the Custom House had been disconnected by SBC, which is based in Dallas.

Farris also sent letters to the Cairo Public Utility Co. and Illinois American Water Co., but spokesmen for those utilities said they didn't plan to shut off service without a request from the entire city council.

Larry Klein of Cairo Public Utility explained, "Our attorney's advice was to wait for council approval" before taking any action. Steve Keith, local representative of the water company, said he, too, will wait for formal council action before shutting off the water at either building. Keith said the library board has been paying the water bills.

In the Sunday interview, Farris said the city couldn't afford to pay the utility bills, but when asked details, said he didn't know how much the city paid either monthly or yearly for utilities on the buildings. The city's insurance policy covers both Riverlore and the Custom House.

Louise Ogg, who with her husband, Russell, volunteers countless hours each week to keep the Custom House open, said in the past 12 months, the museum's gas, electric and sewer bills totaled $7,912.52, while outside electricity for security lights and a drinking fountain cost an additional $376.87. She said the library board budgeted $12,000 for the year's utilities.

Ogg said the library board met Tuesday afternoon and agreed to have the Custom House phone service restored as well.

Though Farris "has hinted he would close the Custom House, he's never directly said anything" to her or her husband, Ogg said. They make the 30-mile round trip from their home in Unity to keep the museum open, working with a small cadre of volunteers. Farris "won't speak to me," she said.

Linda Jackson, a member of the Cairo City Council, said the council hadn't authorized the mayor's cutting off of utilities. "He acted entirely solo on this, without the consent of the council," Jackson said. "Most of us were busy with Riverboat Days and weren't aware" of Farris' latest action.

Riverboat Days is the annual festival that, ironically, celebrates Cairo's history and heritage.

"For the past two and a half years, the council has tried to work with him," Jackson said. Often, she said, the council members simply walked out "to avoid a confrontation." Farris, she observed, "seems obsessed with the previous administration" and spent council meetings complaining about former city officials and librarian Monica Smith, rather than trying to move forward.

David Koch, longtime official at Morris Library at SIUC and expert on preservation of historical materials, shudders to think what can become of historic paper documents and other exhibits if heating, air conditioning and security are suddenly ended at the Custom House.

"It's a no-brainer," Koch said. "The Custom House has air-conditioning," and the climate control was installed for a reason, he said.

"These are terribly fragile things. A couple of months of cold, damp weather, or hot, dry weather" could ruin the artifacts, he explained.

SIUC obtained a grant from the Library of Congress to create a Lewis & Clark exhibit that is now displayed in the Custom House, he said. "The university has an interest in protecting these materials."

"It would be a shame to have (the Custom House) close. The Custom House and Safford Library are both well known in the tourism world," Koch said. "There also is a movement to turn Fort Defiance into a national park," he added, so closing two other prominent historical buildings would make no sense.

Koch said the mayor had cooperated "to a degree" with an SIUC group to install a sculpture at Fort Defiance, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

Robert Swenson, an SIUC architect who has been involved with Cairo for 25 years or more, said the university has invested at least $90,000 on the library and Custom House in the last year or two, using funds obtained from the Library of Congress.

"SIU invested a tremendous amount for Lewis & Clark," he said, "including navigation instruments from the era of the two explorers. We built exhibits and worked to install the sculpture at the Confluence (at Fort Defiance)," he said. There was three and one-half years of work involved, with Morris Library, the University Museum and other departments cooperating on the Cairo projects, Swenson said.

"I'm not sure what the SIU stance would be on the exhibits" if the Custom House building were empty and unprotected, he added.

"Preservation classes at the university use those buildings as resources - how can somebody close it? We've done everything we can do to cooperate with the mayor and the city" on recognizing the city's heritage, Swenson said.

"We have to use that heritage as a stepping stone to rebuild the community," Koch said.

Cairo has received state tourism grants of $50,000 for work at the Custom House and $100,000 for Riverlore. Those grants were accompanied by contracts that the city could risk violating if the tourist attractions are shut down.

Farris said he's not worried about repaying grant money. "These people need to understand that grant money, these federal funds, came off the backs of the poor people," he said.

Ogg is proud of the Custom House and its contents. Among recent visitors, she said, was an Indianapolis couple who had been visiting museums across the country. "This place is awesome," they told her. "They thought it was better than any museum they had seen," Ogg said with pride.

The Custom House and Riverlore both had been governed by separate boards prior to 2003, but the city council - in the eight days before Farris took office - placed both the Custom House and Riverlore under the direction of the library board.

That action infuriated Farris. He terms the nine-member library board "elitists who think it's their sovereign right to run the library. It has been ran by white supremists," he said several times during the phone interview.

Farris said those who operate the Custom House and Riverlore "hide under that umbrella of tourism, but it's about control."

He also accused the volunteers at both the Custom House and Riverlore of being unfriendly to visitors. "They never open the place up for school kids," the mayor said.

John C. Davis of SIUC's College of Education and Human Resources and founder of the Suluki Kids Academy, said the Custom House Museum has cooperated well with the academy, which provides summer classes and enrichment activities for at-risk youngsters and now offers a children's program in the former Cairo Junior High year-round.

"We haven't used the Custom House extensively because the kids already have visited there on school field trips," Davis said. The children used the Safford Library quite a lot and "Monica is very helpful to us," he said. SIUC even donated a number of children's books to the library's collection in recognition of that partnership.

"We have always felt very welcome at both the library and custom house," Davis said.

Closing of the Custom House, Davis said, "would have a negative impact on our ability to work with children to learn the history of the region."

Farris said "tourism is a joke" that doesn't really benefit the city economically. The Custom House alone draws some 4,000 visitors each year. They marvel at the architecture of the 133-year-old three-story structure and the amazing array of exhibits. Louise Ogg and a committee of volunteers coordinated events for the re-enactment of Lewis & Clark's journey.

There were National Park Service traveling exhibits, and also local programs to celebrate the bicentennial of the explorers' journey. Permanent monuments and exhibits now acknowledge the days the explorers spent in Cairo. The turnout of visitors was gratifying, too.

Darrell Shemwell of Shemwell's Barbecue said the restaurant puts out dozens of tourist pamphlets about the Custom House and Riverlore each month, and they always are quickly snapped up by visitors. Shemwell's has been in business in Cairo since 1946. Shemwell said he's not sure how much additional business he picks up from tourists, "because we get a lot of out-of-town trade anyway," but he'd hate to see the two landmarks shut down.

Farris said he believes "SIU or tourism should run Riverlore, not the city. The community is deeply in the red."

"I am tickled to death to see SIU's involvement in this community," Farris said. I'm glad to work with them on projects. I invite them to come in here and work with us to stabilize the future of our mansions and museums.

Cindy Benefield, director of the Southern Illinoismost Tourism Bureau, said she was saddened to hear of the latest dispute. "The timing was poor, with the momentum to rebuild Cairo" evidenced by improvements to Fort Defiance and other initiatives.

"Cairo has such a rich history, yet has so few places to tell that history," Benefield said. "The Custom House is a perfect setting for relating the city's story."

Larry Woolard, Gov. Rod Blagojevich's downstate representative for the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, had no official comment on the mayor's actions.

"I don't know if we have the authority or jurisdiction, but we do have concern for all of Southern Illinois, including Cairo. If there is any way we can assist the community, we will try to do so."

SIUC's Swenson may have summed Cairo's ongoing troubles most succinctly:

"They've got a fantastic town and they can survive - if they can just learn to get along."

And if that wasn't enough...

Cairo mayoral controversy continues

BY LINDA RUSH
THE SOUTHERN

CAIRO - Paul Farris, Cairo's controversial mayor, prides himself on being a graduate of the Dale Carnegie course.

Most members of the city council would dispute that, based on his behavior. They say he has made few efforts to win friends or influence people since taking office in May 2003.

And Farris, who said he makes his living as a salesman, hasn't been able to sell the council on many of his ideas.

"Jarheads" was the kindest name Farris called the council members in a lengthy phone interview Sunday.

Two days later, however, in a special council meeting, the mayor and council did agree to ask Southern Illinois University Carbondale for help in solving the city's financial problems.

It may have been a watershed moment.

There's been little agreement on anything else.

Instead, there has been turmoil, litigation, name-calling - and more litigation. Critics say that while Farris is railing about Cairo's expenses, the city is paying several times what it had budgeted for legal services.

There's been no city audit since Farris was elected because, he said, "I refused to sign off on it as being correct."

The council is to blame, he added.

"They've been operating city hall from the library since I was elected," Farris said of the city council.

He blames librarian Monica Smith and Finance Commissioner Joey Thurston for the city's troubles.

Smith believes she was targeted because she had successfully written grants for former Mayor Jim Wilson. Thurston was serving as mayor pro tem in the eight days between Wilson's resignation and Farris' taking over as mayor.

Terming Thurston "the eight-day wonder," Farris blasted him and other council members for placing control of the Custom House Museum and Riverlore mansion, both owned by the city, under the library board during that brief period.

Farris said he is determined to place both landmarks "back in the city's control - not the library board."

The library board currently has a suit against the mayor, Smith said. The library is a taxing body for which about $45,000 a year in taxes is collected. "The city collected the library tax, but didn't distribute it to the library," Smith said. "The library has paid the bills itself, using memorial funds and other donations."

She agrees the city has financial problems. But, she notes, much of its expenditures are legal expenses directly tied to Farris' actions.

"He fired three or four city workers, and Laborers Local 773 stepped in. They got their jobs back and the city now owes them back pay," Smith said.

In Farris' tenure, she said, the city's lawyers have been paid several times what was appropriated for legal counsel. "He has abused his power," she said simply.

After taking office May 1, 2003, Farris attempted to remove six of the nine members of the library board and then make temporary appointments to the vacant positions. The judge ruled in favor of the Cairo Public Library and said Farris had acted outside his authority.

Farris also fired four department heads, who also filed suit against Farris in U.S. District Court in Benton. They are former city clerk Lorrie Hesselrode, former fire Chief Harvey Clark, former street superintendent Ronald Harris and former police Chief Calvin Box.

Other lawsuits were filed by a former police employee who was fired by Farris, and by Monica Smith and Judson Childs, who also were under contract to the city and were fired by Farris.

Farris also found himself in court for moving city money from one bank to another without the council's consent. Farris did that, he said, so that city employees could be paid.

There have been three city attorneys since Farris took office. The first resigned; the second resigned to defend the mayor privately. Michael O'Shea is the current city attorney.

"The only fun" of being mayor, Farris said, "is maybe helping improve people's way of life."

"I've got a lot of anger in me," Farris said. "A lot of determination, too."

"I am the mayor whether they like it or not."