Tag: Springfield

Jay Wavering is being remembered as a conscientious government servant and for his love of politics. Wavering, 67, died Saturday after he was pinned underneath a tree he was cutting with two friends in the 3300 block of Lightfoot Road. Wavering ran Springfield Mayor J. Michael Houston’s 2003 and 2011 campaigns. Wavering went on to become city purchasing agent in 2011. That’s how I got to know him.” Houston recalled that Wavering wrote all of the commercials used for radio and television and came up with ads for print for the campaigns. Wavering was also involved in campaigns for Rep. Raymond Poe, who served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1995 to 2015 before he resigned to become director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture. He had been involved in some huge purchases with the state. With the city, it was a smaller operation, but he brought the knowledge and experience to it and he did a fabulous job.” McCarty said he considered Wavering “a colleague and a friend.” “It hit me like a ton of bricks,” McCarty said when he received the news over the weekend. “I’m truly saddened by what happened.” McCarty said he didn’t know Wavering until his resume crossed his desk, but he eventually became McCarty’s first hire as the OBM director. Wavering was pronounced dead at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Medical Center, Edwards said.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Legislation proposing the separation of Chicago from Illinois is intended to spark discussion about the overarching influence of the city in state politics, not actually lead to the creation of the 51st state, according to a Central Illinois lawmaker who sponsored the measure. "It's more of a frustration of the policies than the true belief that Chicago and Illinois would be better off as separate states," Davidsmeyer said. "I don't believe that Chicago and the state of Illinois should be separated. Our relationship is mutually beneficial." Chicago needs to recognize how its policies impact rural Illinois, Davidsmeyer added. "The reality is, the city of Chicago is competing with New York City and L.A. and San Francisco, and (downstate is) competing against rural Indiana and rural Missouri," he said. GOP state Rep. Brad Halbrook introduced the proposed measure in February. He co-sponsored a similar proposal last year that failed, and this year's attempt has even less of a chance of succeeding in the Democratic-controlled Legislature. Halbrook said the city of 2.7 million people differs ideologically from the rural population downstate on matters such as abortion and gun rights. "We are trying to drive the discussion to get people at the table to say these are not our values down here."