Shawn Gregory tells us of some Juneteenth activities and other updates from Ward 2 Alderman

Jeff Williams:
Welcome to Community Voices, a production of NPR Illinois. I'm your co-host, Jeff Williams, in the studio with me today, Ward 2 Alderman, Shawn Gregory. Shawn, how's it going?
Shawn Gregory:
All right, good afternoon to you, my friend.
Jeff Williams:
It's good to have you in here… definitely. I didn't know if right off the bat you wanted to touch on anything, said you just had to go, you have the chainsaw out.
Shawn Gregory:
Yeah, I'm going to go get it out. I got an elder on one of my blocks in my ward I stopped by Saturday as we're checking out storm damage and things, Friday. And she's got a tree, large tree, and the homeowner landlord hasn't taken care of it just yet. And I'm just going to go over there and do the best I can to just move some of the branches away from her ramp and stuff so she can get in and out. She's 84 years old. And I think when our grandkids hit me, I was like, hey, are you still able to help her? I'm like, absolutely. Juneteenth had me a little busy and, you know, trying to take care of everybody with the storm damage and send emails and stuff. Had me a little busy, but I'm a man, I'm a word. I'm going to get that done.
Jeff Williams:
Right, well, thank you for doing that for her. Definitely. Yeah. So, yeah, for people, like where your ward extends, one of the first things they think of Southtown area, but it extends towards Comer Cox Park, is that that's part of it too, down towards like a Southeast High School on Taylor Avenue, right? Then kind of back through the Lincoln Homes area, is that part partially? I don't know if I'm missing any particular areas there, but just wanted to give people kind of an idea so they know your ward area. I know I didn't go that in depth with it.
Shawn Gregory:
Yeah, so Ward 2 goes from the south end of town to the north end of town. You know, we have the west side of… I think that's 15th Street there, along Pillsbury (old factory).
Jeff Williams:
Pillsbury, yeah, goes up towards Pillsbury area.
Shawn Gregory:
Stop it, right there about Enterprise. And then Alderman Williams, Ward 3 comes over the top of me and gets Lanphier (High School), (Alderman) Larry Rockford, share some of that. And then I'll come back down 11th Street, me, Alderwoman (Lakeisha) Purchase, and (Alderman) Roy Williams meet up sort of like on 13th and Phillips, 11th Street and Phillips Street (approximately in) there. And then I come back all the way down 11th Street to Capitol (Avenue). And then I go downtown, as you were mentioning. And we go from 3rd and Capitol to 3rd and Cedar. And then at that point we come back to about the 10th St. tracks, 11th St. tracks, and we go Harvard Park area, all the way back to that Stevenson (Drive) area.
Jeff Williams:
I remember seeing, I used to way back, my brother still does a lot like skateboarding. I kind of got into the, you know, kind of bike sort of thing more. He still skateboards A lot. But just to have the, like a pump park in Comer Cox, which I, Seeing those things around, what a pump park is for people out there, it's like if you are skateboarding, you can kind of roll over these humps, I guess you'd say, and you can kind of keep your momentum all the way around this track. It's maybe for people who if they're just learning, OR if they've done it for a while and they want to chill out from actually (skateboarding on) half pipes and stuff like that as much, it's kind of a nice thing. You don't see him a lot around the state… I’m just blathering about stuff here! But it's just something … I just… I think it's kind of a neat thing.
Shawn Gregory:
You know, that was one of the one of the more unique things that we added to a war to, and you know, that was that was a not tip I had to let this grow in the park district, you know. We were trying to do some things when I first came into the office as a boy, I was young, right? I was trying to use some tiff to, you know, in place in the park, and you know, Director (Leslie) Sgro or President Sgro, she went to went to her thinking cap and she went out and secured $1,000,000 donation from I want to say the Smith family, the HD Smith family. So that was one of the options. We had a bunch of options and as a group, they settled on that. And it's really, really unique. There's one similar, I think, some miles away, but for Springfield in this central Illinois area.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, yeah, it is. And that's why I wanted to bring that because it is the thing where, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of park districts around the area that do have ramps of different types for, skateboarding in particular. But a pump park is kind of a very specific thing. Like Gibson City, Illinois has one. It's something where you don't see a lot. It takes some planning to do something like that. It's not just necessarily throwing in like a metal quarter pipe ramp or something like that. So, planning's involved, that goes into.
Shawn Gregory:
And what, it's fun. when we first cut the ribbon on it and stuff, some kids came out and was riding and stuff. And I tried it, and it was fantastic. And one of the things that's exciting about it is years before, me and the outlet president, Mike Falone, you know, I was working at Green Family Stores then. And then he called me one day, he's like, hey, man, I got 100 bikes and I just want to get them out to the hood, to the community, totally free. I'm like, okay, well, let me see if I can get a truck. So, I went to my bosses at Green and I was like, oh, for sure. Let me use a truck, you know, one of our rental trucks. And we filled that thing up as high as we could get it. And we just went around the community, and we gave bikes out to every kid we'd seen who didn't have one. So, when that opportunity came, a lot of kids, I was young and me and my friends, we used to go ride our bikes to all the places we shouldn't have been. So, what we wanted to do is have a destination for our kids to ride those bikes and have a destination to go. Recently, they added in walk paths. And so now, those kids will not only be able to walk, but they'll be able to ride their bikes right on to the pump track. So that was a great addition. And then we came right behind that and partnered and came together and put that fitness court in there. Yeah, the fitness court. Just sort of trying to address the disparities. We’ve got health disparities. We need more youth activities and different things to do. I mean, we could have easily thrown another basketball court in there, right? But we got, we got, what, four over there already. So, we wanted to give the kids something else different to do. And it really brought together both black and white community members. Contrary to belief, War 2 is not all black. It is multi-diverse. And I love that about our war. Yeah, absolutely. We're all together and we're all trying to make a better community together. Some of the kids are really good at it. They go high on that ramp and come on down and stuff. So it was a great, great addition. I appreciate the partnership.
Jeff Williams:
And as you mentioned also though, as far as that, the fit, like for the workout, like the fit court, it's basically just a way where you can come to the park for free. It's absolutely free. And it's a way where you can work out all your whole body, your core, everything you can. That's a huge thing too, where a person, where they don't necessarily have to go and get a membership there, get it. Some days it's rainy, we got winters, but still it takes care of something. And it's something that doesn't necessarily, it shouldn't be overlooked.
Shawn Gregory:
Yeah, absolutely. I've seen, you know, women's classes go out there. They got the step boxes. I've seen men classes go out there. You know, the kids love it. and they don't even recognize that they're working their core and stuff because they climb all over. It's solid steel. It can't be destroyed. You know, because that was some of the, no, it's going to get, no, it's solid steel. Ain't nothing. It ain't going nowhere. They love it. You know, so it was beautiful to see. Kids was all over. I mean, my daughter loves it. She was over there. I couldn't get her off of it. So, you know, things like that, things that we need to address some of these long-standing things that we have talked about in our community. And, you know, those are two of them and we just keep working at it.
Jeff Williams:
Right, Now, this is something I this. But the Canadian National Railway that goes through, I mean, it goes through a lot of, through Springfield, it was just interesting to me. I just have no idea.
Shawn Gregory:
Well, I know on the 19th Street tracks, as you see, we have the 3rd Street tracks and the 11th Street tracks. And there's supposed to be a conversion there where all those trains are going to move on that 11th Street track. What me and Autumn Williams have been pushing for and pushing not only the county and the city, but the railroads and our federal partners in Congress and at the state level is a really We got to figure out what we're going to do with the 19th St. tracks. The 19th St. tracks, which is on the east side, straddles me and Alderman Williams Ward, was a part of the original plan over, I mean, now, what, 14, 15 years ago when they started producing that plan and promising, you know, that the east side wouldn't be left out in that. So, you know, we continue to see development on those corridors, 3rd Street and 11th Street tracks. We're happy about that, of course, but at the same time, we cannot leave out the heart of our community on the east side as well. and making sure that gets done. And, for me, it's simple. We need to know what the decision is, whether you're going to keep, rolling. I think there's a few coal cars going down to the Kincaid plant. You know, those are going to keep rolling. We're going to do underpasses. We're not going to do underpasses, you know, so we can let the community know exactly what's going to happen. But regardless of what happens, it needs cleaned up, it needs fixed, the trees need cut. The underpass on Cook Street and Martin Luther King, there as you go under, the trestles are.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, yeah.
Shawn Gregory:
Yeah, that's pretty old. When we go over on Laurel Street, South Grand, it's very, very bumpy. You know, it's tearing up people's cars. We already don't have money to be fixing cars. So, we've been pushing for that. And, you know, we complement our state partners who definitely, there was like a $10 million grant or funding allocation that was going to come down and it was only going to address the Third Street tracks and a walking path. So we're like, hold on, wait a minute. You know, I'm all for making a green way down Third Street. Like I said, that's my part of my Ward too. But we can't leave out our family on the other side of the tracks with no answer. So, we made an amendment and we went for $500,000 to do, which we hate another study to see what that looks like and how much money that costs. Because as we see, you know, it took already, you know, 15 almost 20 years to get to the point for the 3rd Street and the 11th Street tracks. So, you're looking at another 15, 20 years before we're going to see something on that 19th Street tracks. We want to speed it up. We don't want it to take that long, but certainly we should have some answers for our East side. And that's sort of like my push, right? At some point in time, The poorest part of our city has to be the priority.
Jeff Williams:
Right.
Shawn Gregory:
I'm for everything, all good things in our city.
Jeff Williams:
Sure, absolutely.
Shawn Gregory:
But if that means passing up us, you know, and a portion of my ward, I'm not going to be for it, you know, because, you know, my ward, I'm for everybody on my ward from the north to the south to the east of the west of ward, too. We can't, you know, move on the 3rd St. tracks on a walking path, you know, for leisure, while the quality of life on the 19th St. tracks steady affects those constituents. And, you know, I wasn't around back then. when they did that study. I didn't really even care about politics at that point, but I do know from those studies that we did promise the East Side that we were going to make the same improvements that we were making on the other ones, and we want to see that done. We looked to getting some information. We had a great meeting with Hansen Engineers not too long ago, Leonardo Williams, on what that looks like, where they're at with that, and we look for an update before budget so we can see what we can do to at least start making progress on that and really come up with a game plan for that corridor, because we want it to look the same, as the 3rd Street Greenway is that they're calling it the link. We want to be linked in. Don’t cut us out. And that's sort of my thing, cut us in or cut it out.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah. In any community, any city, town, Hamlet, it all is better when all parts are better. You know what I mean? If you are able to see that and understand that, all parts can come up and it helps everybody have pride in the city. And everybody feels good about any place that they go in the city. It shouldn't just be where some certain people maybe feel like, well, maybe we're not sure if we want to go. It makes you feel everybody feels better if everybody is able to feel better.
Shawn Gregory:
Absolutely. And as you're saying, it just helps overall, you know, morale of (everyone).
Jeff Williams:
Those who live in Springfield, no matter where they live.
Shawn Gregory:
And the things that, you know, from a city perspective and our bottom line and tax dollars and all that, you know, when I first came in, there was a priority me that had, the disparities listed, and Springfield, Illinois had the highest disparities for cities our size in the country for in home ownership and wealth income. So those sorts of the things that we've been pushing for, right? When cannabis became legal back in 2019 and 2020, me and now Senator Turner, former auto woman, went and, you know, went to the table and said, hey, we wanted it all to push to the half, but, you know, the deal that we had to make with council was we get half of it and, you know, they wanted to put half to the police and fire pension no matter how you feel about that, that's what happened. But that has brought us some dividends and we've seen some success and we put it into two programs. We put it into owner occupied home repair and we put it into business development. Right now they're currently in an application period. They'll probably be about 10 businesses that's awarded some type of funding to either improve their business or you know start a new one. and there's probably about 15, 20 houses that's going to get up to $25,000 to do different things. And these are homeowners in our community because everybody's not a renter. There are homeowners. We went right after the tiffs and we lowered the matches on those tiffs because it used to be 50-50. So if you're talking about a $10,000 roof anyway, it's about $20,000 now. But even if you're talking about a $20,000 roof, now you're asking a resident from the poorest area in the city to come up with $10,000. Well, that was always hard. So we we dropped those matches. First we dropped it to 25,000 and then we put in another ordinance, and we turned it to 0. So, more access and we're seeing more people being to access those funds. We're seeing more, we're trying to put that knowledge out there because a lot of people, all this time, didn't know that these funds were available. Community development block funds, those come from the federal government to the state municipalities. Been pushing to make sure that gets to the intended target of communities, whether that's our elders throughout the city. It's no geographic area, but a lot of times which is… I’m used in the low census tract areas or the poorest areas of our city. Things are important and I will explain that to anybody I come across about how important it is being involved in the political atmosphere because that pocket of money, just that one, it helps fund seniors and ramps. It helps fund youth programs. It helps fund roofs and all types of things, right? And right now, they're trying to cut that. We're already down $500,000. So that's even less people that's going to be able to come to the at the table and say, I need funding for my youth program. We know we have issues with violence prevention and youth activities and things. So that just cuts it down. We need more. We don't need a cut to really turn around our communities and do what we need to do. So those are sort of how we attacked it. You know, how I've always come in trying to attack the disparities to make them better. And, you know, we were #1 and now we're #2. You know, and, you know, we shouldn't be in the top five or top 10, in my view. Those just though some of those things have moved us to #2. So we just keep at it, and we're seeing more and more business. I mean, since I've been in office, we've probably opened up about 10 new businesses that wasn't there. The strip mall on 11th Street only had PNC Bank.
Jeff Williams:
And.
Shawn Gregory:
Only had PNC Bank, and they were going to leave. I worked with former Senator (Andy) Manar and former Alderwoman (Doris) Turner to save that bank and keep them there. And they, you know, extended a long-term lease, and they're there still. Now, you know, you got two other businesses, almost three of them in there. Debate shop, B. Hayes Bait and Tackle. He wasn't there. He was a recipient of a cannabis grant. RN the maintenance, which is on the backside of his building, was a cannabis grant recipient. Then you have, he sold off the other building. It used to be the old breaking clutch, if you.
Jeff Williams:
Remember the only clutch?
Shawn Gregory:
Yeah, far building to the south there, he sold it to another young black male entrepreneur, Ms. Dee's son. Now he has this recording studio, art studio. It's very nice in there to keep it up. Lathan Harris is there. She was there. previously, but she's got some fantastic things going on as well. Dee's Kitchens still there. Then you go down to CAP 1908 with Dominic Watson and then the Springfield Project and the beautiful things they're doing there. Bruce across the street at Bourbon Street, you know, he's bought those two buildings that was left over from the railroad and had some great plans.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, okay, yeah, I didn't hear that.
Shawn Gregory:
Had some great plans to really turn that whole thing into an entertainment venue. So now people from that community don't have to go anywhere else but in their community to have small receptions or for weddings. et cetera, and on and on. And then Pride 10th there on 11th Street, that young man, a cannabis recipient. And some of these got $100,000 in cannabis funding. That's probably one of my proudest things that we've done, right? There's only one other city in the whole state, Mr. Williams, whole state, that has taken that cannabis fund. and really put it to the community to match the intent of the law. The intent of the law was to make it legal to repair the war on drugs. So we did our portion of it. Evanston, Illinois did their portion. They did it a little differently, of course, on parts of what we do here. I think ours is really, really sound. But we're the only two cities that I know of anyway that have really attacked and said, we're going to put that to our poorest community, our minority communities, to help reverse the effects on the war on drugs on that particular product. So So that's just always my mindset is, all three of our parks have had some work. Dreamland's about to just got a $600,000 grant, I believe. They're going to get some work at Dreamland Park, new toys, Kiwanis Park, all those apartments. It used to be called Lake Victoria, but now it's Whispering Pines. It's nice. They've upgraded it, put all new appliances in. It's very, very nice. There are still some areas that we want to keep working on, right? But now those kids have toys. They have a shelter over there. The neighborhood association from Stratford Place loves it. Those are $150,000 to $200,000 houses there and they come over to that park now and they have a home to sit outside and BBQ along with the kids and the soccer folks love. So, it has really, really improved that area, not a section that we need to address that we haven't tried to attack and whether it's our funding and getting it more accessible to the people, whether it's our parks and making them better for the people, whether it's more housing. I mean, we've seen 90 new houses since I've been in office this last eight years from Pastor Johnson and the Nehemiah Project. 50 on the way, right? That's gonna be 170 new houses that good man has done in our community. You know, even before me, he had a set done, right? He would come in, we help him get the next set done. Then we just approved his last set. He should be starting on those sometime this summer, you know, on another 50 houses. In that, we call it the box, right? In between South Grand and Cook, 11th and Martin Luther King. We tore down probably about 60 houses that needed to go.
Jeff Williams:
Didn't it, right.
Shawn Gregory:
We probably got about 30 to 40 (houses) that need to (get raised) throughout the ward. So now we're going to put those houses back. So now that area is going to slowly but surely come. Martin Luther King is going to look like Walnut Street. You know, it's going to get a safety improvement. The lights at Martin Luther King and South Grant are going to be improved. The lights at 11th and South Grant are going to be improved. My pitch was always with Martin Luther King is that a man that great with a street named after him, should not look like this. that's just me though, and our former mayor agreed with that, and so we got that in the hatch, and we should be seeing some movement with that within the next year or so. We’re happy about it. it's starting to really get there, right? Get that traction. Especially our people, it's the people from the community are starting to believe, not only in themselves, but in a portion of government, that not everything in our community relies on government, but what is What is supposed to come down to poor people in poor communities like the one I represent surely should be there and should be given to them without a bunch of hoops. And that's sort of what I fight for. And it always doesn't go well, but my stance is always going to be the same. That was what someone I always told myself. I said, well, if I win this thing, promise myself that I ain't never going to turn my back on my people, that I ain't never going to make a decision that satisfies others without doing anything. And we've seen that, whether that was a sports center, sports complex, and trying to, because the city's in on that $35 million in bonds, right? So, we, the proceeds off that or whatever off that, we're trying to get it over here to help Chamberlain Park out, because we know there's some kids that ain't going to be able to get out to the Shield Sports Complex, right? We know that reality. You know, and on and on. You see other projects that's going on and things of that nature. And guess what? We we're trying to get in on that too, because there shouldn't be any large-scale project that comes to the city of Springfield that doesn't benefit all of Springfield, and the East Side must be priority. You know, I just want to the last thing I'll say is, you know, Juneteenth, you know, Juneteenth was so beautiful this weekend. You know, it was really, really beautiful. We had to kick off of our midnight basketball league there. And man, just to see All of our people come out and no problems, no fights or anything. some of the best basketball players this city's ever seen came back to converge. Young people who didn't traditionally play basketball out there and, just all flowing and all love together, on Juneteenth to kick that off. And that's the in-season tournament. They did the in-season tournament. Now they'll go for eight weeks, midnight basketball. Little Herman Senor's running our park district on Tuesdays with multiple activities. You know, the basketball is the thing that gets them there. a lot of the times, but there's so many other activities that are part of all of this. We just try to use the game that they love and things that young people and even young adults love to get them in the door to sort of push some good things. So those guys will be getting, you know, job opportunities. We'll have Express come in. We'll get SIU in. We'll, you know, prostate cancer is a big thing. It's Men's Health Month week. And so those things, especially as I get older, you know, are, you know, always on my mind. You wouldn't want to pass that on to our brother. So I appreciate you for having me. We can talk forever on the things that our community has done. We can talk forever on the things that we've accomplished, and we still want to do. But for our people, just know that we're going to keep working. And I appreciate you, my friend.
Jeff Williams:
All right, love it. Thank you so much for stopping by.
Shawn Gregory:
Yes, sir.
Jeff Williams:
Once again, in Ward 2, Alderman Sean Gregory, man, thank you so much.
Shawn Gregory:
No problem, my pleasure.
Jeff Williams:
Right on. Cool. That's good for you.
Shawn Gregory:
Yes, sir.
Jeff Williams:
Community Voices is a production of NPR, Illinois.