Lee Fronabarger

 Here are council candidate Lee Fronabarger's answers to several questions about his candidacy.

1. Why are you running for city council?

I am running for City Council to get Carbondale BACK ON TRACK for growth and progress. Council

needs to focus on those issues which will make Carbondale more attractive to new and expanding

businesses and services in order to create more jobs and money flowing throughout the local economy.

Will continue advocating for fiscal responsibility, providing quality city services, and for the city operating

with a balanced budget.

2. What do you hope to accomplish during your term on council?

I want to work with city staff and fellow councilmembers to tackle the issues of a stagnant economy with

many empty commercial buildings in town, housing issues and boarded up properties in highly visible

areas of town, reduction of crime by working with the Public Safety Department and other area law

enforcement, focusing on stopping the illegal supply of guns to underage juveniles and felons.

3. The city has embarked on some major projects during the last several years. (multimodal transit

station, demolition of blighted properties, entertainment plaza, upgraded downtown lighting, upgraded

downtown sidewalks). Is there a project you would like to see the city undertake?

I would like the city to intensely concentrate on economic development and job growth for Carbondale.

Diversifying the local economy is of major importance, as everything revolves around the economy. Work

closely with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, making sure Carbondale

meets all the criteria and has everything in place a new and expanding business is looking for to relocate

in or move to Illinois. Also work with other local economic development groups like Jackson Growth

Alliance, SI Now, and the SI Airport Development group to present a unified approach.

Would also like the City to set up a Business Start-Up Grant with Seed Money which would have

stipulations attached, like completing the Business Start-Up Program at the SIU Small Business

Development Center.

4. Given how much the health of Carbondale and SIUC intertwine, how can you see the city and

university working together for the benefit of each?

Work on a unified marketing campaign/strategy, highlighting the many pluses and advantages of

attending school at SIU and residing in Carbondale. Note the lower cost of living in Carbondale area,

close proximity to major cities of St Louis, Memphis, Nashville, most beautiful scenic landscape in the

three-state region providing for a variety of outdoor adventures, student focused approach to education,

practical experiences immersed into classroom instruction, internship programs, multiple opportunities to

join and volunteer with student and community organizations.

5. What additional steps (if any) should the city take regarding rental properties?

Research what other cities in the Midwest have done to tackle the issues of rundown or abandoned rental

properties and how to deal with bad landlords that have the reputation of being slumlords. Stricter

enforcement of ordinances already on the books and make changes to intensify ordinances if needed to

be more effective and produce results.

6. In the 90s, downtown Carbondale was a shopping district. Today, most visitors to downtown

Carbondale visit one place and leave. Is there anything the city could/should do to change this or is this a

natural progression of behavior?

The city should do everything it can to encourage local developers to invest in constructing commercial

buildings on vacant lots in the downtown district to present a more contiguous business district. There

are too many open spaces that cause visitors or shoppers to not venture throughout the downtown

business district. More retail boutiques and specialty shops are needed in downtown area to add to the

mix of restaurants and bars.

7. How do you visualize Carbondale and what steps can the city take to achieve your vision?

I visualize Carbondale to continue as the center or hub of the Southern Illinois Region for shopping,

education, healthcare, transportation, arts & entertainment. City staff should survey the community to find

out what outages we experience for products and services, causing citizens to go elsewhere for those

items and thus that revenue leaving the Carbondale community to be recycled into the community.

There is no longer any retail establishment in Carbondale to purchase finer lines of clothing for special

occasions and high school students have no place to shop for prom attire locally are just two examples of

outages and revenue lost to Carbondale. Within a 20-mile radius of Carbondale, which is easily within

the local trade area, the 2020 population reaches the figure of over 76,000. The 30-mile radius figure is

just under 125,000 residents. Carbondale has the potential, but it will take a refocused effort to make for

a thriving, healthy, growing community. Let’s Get Carbondale Back on Track.

Lee Fronabarger

I contacted former council member and current city council candidate Lee Fronabarger with questions about his candidacy. Here are his  unedited responses

Why did you decide to run?

I decided to run for Carbondale City Council after encouragement from several individuals within the community. And I wanted the opportunity to continue the progress made when I served previously on the Council for six years.

What do you hope to accomplish if you are elected?

Economic development and jobs creation towards a more diversified Carbondale economy is so key to the future of Carbondale and would include the development of a center for Start-Ups/Innovation, as well as Shared Services Space, like a State Approved Certified Kitchen where food products could be prepared for distribution in the local and regional markets.

To increase revenues into the community, I would encourage the city to partner with Carbondale Tourism, Chamber of Commerce, Carbondale Main Street, Carbondale Community Arts, SIU & SIU Athletics, SIH, and CCHS to create events, festivals, day-trips, overnight adventures, conventions and conferences. We need to cycle more money into the local economy.

City Council Meeting

Attended the May 2 city council meeting, which had a very short agenda and was completed in about 45 minutes. It would have taken even less time except that various council members removed items from the consent agenda for individual consideration, meaning that the only thing approved when the consent agenda was approved was the minutes from the previous meeting.

The results for April's election were announced and Mayor Henry took special note that, of the registered voters in Carbondale, only 1848 turned out to vote for city council.

A separate resolution commended Lee Fronabarger, who lost his bid for a second term on council, for his six years of service, two appointed and 4 elected, as a councilman.

The final item considered separately was the proposal of the awarding of contracts for parking lots where the old Sidetracks' building stands and reconstructing the parking lot next to Gaia House. The reason it was pulled from the consent agenda was that Councilwoman Jessica Branshaw had concerns about the construction of the lot, as when it had been built, as a temporary lot a couple of decades ago, the construction had caused flooding in the basement of Gaia House when it rained during the construction. She, Hugh Muldoon and Charlie Howe, all spoke in favor of holding off on awarding the contract until potential flooding problems were address in the design of the new lot. Council agreed and postponed voting on the lot work until the next meeting .

Lee Fronabarger Honored

City council passed a resolution at the May 2 meeting honoring Lee Fronabarger for his years of service on the council. Bet he would have rather had another  4 years. 

City Council Candidates

We have 4 candidates running for city council in a very quiet election taking place next week. If you would like to find out more about their platforms, here are links to their Facebook and or web pages, if the campaign has one:

Jeff Doherty

Jessica Bradshaw

Carolin Harvey

Lee Fronabarger

I could not find anything on Carolin Harvey's positions, so if anyone has a link to a source for them please send it to me.

Fronabarger on Tax Increase

Councilman Lee Fronabarger posted this on the recent vote by city council to raise taxes on some categories of prepared foods as well as fuel and packaged liquor.

Cardboard Boat Regatta Pictures

Lee Fronabarger has a number of pictures from the Cardboard Board Regatta posted on his blog.

Brightfields Confirmed.

I saw in this morning's Southern that city council voted to issue the special uses permit to Brightfields for the installation of the solar array on the old Koppers property. When I saw the vote ran 5-2 in favor, I guessed that the 2 "no" votes were Jane Adams and Carolin Harvey and my guess proved right.

Bradshaw had already come out in favor of the project and I had heard second-hand that Jack and McDaniel had as well. Fronabarger is generally in favor of projects like this and Monty leaned toward it, with severe reservations, the last time I heard him discuss it.

Adams, however, had moved from strong support for the project to increased questioning about it as controversy and protests from those living nearby had increased. Since Harvey had remained non-committal in public regarding her stance on the development, I figured it a safe bet that they cast the two no votes.

Lee Fronabarger Blog

Looks as if councilman Lee Fronabarger has started a blog.

City Council Meeting

The Carbondale Observer has done a good job of summarizing last Tuesday's City Council meeting.  I only caught the first hour and  had some observations/comments based on that:

Local Attorney Hugh Williams spoke for a good five minutes on the subject of the Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau, calling for the city to pull all funding from the organization, which would reduce the CCTB's budget by some 70%.  I have seen figures indicating the CCTB already plans to cut expenses, reducing funding to local organizations and cutting the budget for its website from $8000 to $3000.  Executive Director Debbie Moore attending the meeting, sitting in the back row, but, if she spoke, it was after 8 p.m.

Don Monty is establishing himself as the most knowledgeable member of the city council and the most focused on details.  He pulled two items out of the warrants just so that people watching the council meeting would know what boards and commissions  had their minutes approved and whom the mayor had appointed to the CCTB board.  Later, he was the only member of the council to want to discuss the budget and it appeared he wanted to critique the way in which city staff had drafted it but he would up saying staff had done a very good job developing it.

Council seemed leery of taking up the proposal to criminalize spending the night on city property with hesitations on both the motion and second.  Concerns included freedom of speech issues,camping at Cedar Lake and the effect on groups like the Lion's Club who may spend the night on city property preparing for their pancake breakfasts.  Lee Fronabarger eventually withdrew his original motion and Corene McDaniels her second.  Technically, I don't think that was permissible under standard parliamentary procedure, as once a motion has been seconded, it can't be withdrawn but must have some action taken on it.  However, the council, like most organizations today, doesn't adhere to strict Roberts' Rules of Order.

Wedding Chapel and Beer Garden

Last night's council meeting produced a bit more controversy than I had anticipated. The request for beer garden status for Sports Blast's new outdoor patio cum wedding chapel ran into a roadblock when Councilpeople Adams and Monty, long with Mayor Fritzler, voted against granting approval, splitting the council vote 3-3, meaning approval was not granted.

Sports Blast's location was the sticking point. Currently, beer gardens in Carbondale have no restrictions on noise level during weekend hours.  People living on Giant City Road can often hear music coming from Pinch Penny Pub's garden during the weekend, even though Pinch Penny is located about 2 miles away.  Sports Blast is located in an area zoned agricultural, adjacent to the high school and a planned Hindu temple, with a number of residences and apartments nearby.  Given complaints about noise from other beer gardens Monty, Adams and Fritzler expressed concerns about the possible noise coming from the new facility disturbing residents of the area. 

The application contained language indicating the SB planned to play "soft entrance music" for when the bride arrived and exited the ceremony and expected to play music only between 5 p.m and 11 p.m.  However, under the Liquor Code as currently written, beer gardens are exempt from sound level ordinances over the weekend.  Ergo, if the beer garden license passed, the city could do noting legally should Sports Blast play music more loudly than anticipated or past 11 p.m.  When asked if he would include the language regarding time and music constraints as part of the application, making them legally enforceable, Sports Blast demurred, saying they felt it unfair to treat them differently from other beer gardens in the city.  After this, the vote went ahead with Fronabarger, Wissmann and McDainiels voting to approve and, as noted earlier, Fritzler, Adams and Monty voting again (Jack had to recuse himself, due to his ownership of the beer selling Fat Patties).  Wissman and McDaniels made a point of saying they felt it important to encourage business growth as much as possible within the community.

Sports Blast then, upon invitation from the city attorney, had a private discussion with him, and, when they returned to council chambers, announced the company was willing to restrictions as enforceable parts of its application.  The beer garden application went before council again, this time passing unanimously, though Wissmann and McDaniels both made a point of saying they would have preferred to pass the application as originally written.

Liquor Ordinance

Tonight's city council meeting has the revision to the city's liquor ordinance on the agenda.  As proposed, it would allow grocery stores to get a class C2 license, allowing them to sell beer and wine only and not if they have a gas station within 200 feet.  Councilmen Chris Wissmann's comments about the proposed ordinance can be found here and Don Monty's are here.  Councilwoman Jane Adams had this to say  about the ordinance:



We have a lengthy agenda at our meeting Tuesday, but the most important item is an amendment to the City’s liquor ordinance. I think that we have tried your patience with our deliberations, but I hope this is the end or at least the beginning of the end.

We will be considering an amendment that allows the sale of beer and wine in grocery stores. At their July 7 meeting, after addressing comments and questions from the audience, the Liquor Advisory Board voted to recommend the more restrictive and limited sales of beer, wine, and spirits of the two proposals put before them (see my last blog, July 6).

I’ve talked with a lot of people about the issue and have found that most people I’ve spoken with first say they want beer and wine in grocery stores. But as we talk many of them say they would like to be able to buy spirits as well as beer and wine in grocery stores, and they’d like to be able to buy alcoholic beverages in gas station convenience stores, as well.

The amendments before us also require liquor sales in grocery stores to end at 11:00 p.m., rather than 1:59, which is closing time for all other establishments that sell liquor. And it has a lower fee for grocery store licenses than for regular package liquor licenses.

I'm not a big fan of the "grocery store" ordinance as the restriction regarding closeness to gas stations is nonsensical since we have at least three drive up liquor windows in town,  creating another class of licenses adds unneeded bureaucracy,  and not including gas stations just means we will have to reopen the whole thing in another year or so.  I would also like to see the ordinance take effect 6 months to a year after passage to allow currently existing stores time to adjust their product mix.  We currently have 8 liquor stores in town.  Based on the number of liquor only stores in surrounding communities that allow liquor sold in grocery and convenience stores ( only 1 in Murphysboro, 3 in Marion), I'd bet we see 4 of the current stores close up within 5 years after the ordinance is passed. 

Can't be there tonight, but based on their past actions, I expect Mayor Frizler and councilmen Monty and Fronbarger to vote in favor of some form of a revised ordinance and Wissmann to strongly oppose it.  Councilwoman McDaniels has shown little opposition to granting new liquor licenses in the past, so I'd expect her to vote in favor.  Lance Jack and Jane Adams, I'm not certain about.  Both on on record as supporting local businesses as the heart of the community, but given Jack's struggles to get his own liquor license, I don't think he could oppose some other business applying for one. Adams doesn't have  a track record yet, save for voting in favor of liquor licenses for the Icebox and Elite Lounge, though her comments above lead me to think she leans towards a "yes" vote as well.  Ergo, if the vote tonight goes the way I think it will, and the proposal doesn't get tabled for more work, the council votes 6 to 1 in favor with Chris Wissmann the lone opponent.

Liquor Advisory Board Meeting

Sat in on most of tonight's LAB meeting.  Saw councilpeople Lee Fronabarger and Jane Adams, as well as Mayor Joel Fritzler, sitting in the back row, along with contingents from both liquor and grocery stores, as well as one from Huck's.  After quickly voting to retain chair Mark Robinson and vice-chair John Benshoff for another year, the Board moved onto the issue which had attracted most people, a discussion of proposed changes in the ordinance governing who can have a liquor license.

The current ordinance caps class C liquor licenses at 8, does not allow sales south of Pleasant Hill Road, does not allow liquor sales within 250' of gas sales locations, requires a separate entrance and wall for grocery and drug stores, restricts hours of entry and admission to the same as bars, must be 18 years old to work there and 50% of employees must be TIP trained and stores must pay an annual license fee of $2250.

Two competing ordinances were discussed.  The "comprehensive ordinance" proposed by Mayor Fritzler would eliminate the license caps as well as the gas, entrance and wall restrictions and allow sales city wide.  Age limits would remain the same as under the current ordinance though some age limits would differ for class B licenses.  TIP training and license fees would remain as they are now.

The "grocery store ordinance" proposed by Don Monty, would create a new C-2 license only available to grocery stores.  It would also allow sales city wide as well as eliminate the caps as well as the requirement to have a separate entrance and wall.  In addition, it would reduce the gas sales restriction to 200' and only allow the sale of beer (no kegs) and wine.  Liquor sales would end at 111 p.m. (no indication when they would start for 24 hour stores).  There are no restrictions on ages that can enter the store and employees under age 18 can't stock liquor on the shelves.  Only 50% of those who deal with liquor would have to get TIPs training (employees who don't deal with it would not have to get the training, no would they be counted in figuring the percentage) and a C-2 license would only cost $1125, the rationale for this being that the C-2 license holders forgo the opportunity to sell hard liquor so should not have to pay as much for their license.

Francis Murphy from the Neighborhood Food  Co-op spoke in favor of adopting one of the revised ordinances, as did representatives from Kroger, Wal-Mart and Hucks, though the LAB made a point of noting that the proposed ordinances, as written, would only apply to grocery stores, not to convenience stores.  The Kroger representative indicated that they were OK with either proposed ordinance, save for the 11 p.m. restriction in the grocery store ordinance.  There was also a question brought up regarding the city's definition of a grocery store, which a couple of LAB members thought needed "tightened".

The currently licensed liquor stores were, as expected, not in favor of either proposed ordinance. Local resident Pat Kelly argued that, if caps on liquor licenses were removed, the city should, in fairness, look at removing other restrictions on business it has imposed.  Other concerns raised were the increase in density of places to buy liquor and the half price liquor license offered to large stores like Wal-Mart and Kroger.

Some proponents of changes in the ordinance, including Trace Brown, who is building the new Shell convenience store at the intersection of Hwy 13 and Reed Station Road, thought the meeting started at 7 p.m. and came in about 6:45 as the meeting wound down.  Brown spoke in favor of the change, though he made a rather nonsensical argument that if convenience stores could not sell beer and wine, then liquor stores should not be able to sell convenience products such as chips and cigarettes.

The board then chose to vote on the grocery store ordinance.  During the vote, board chairman Mark Robinson,emphasized several times that the vote was advisory, not binding on any future decision by the City Council and that, as written, would not include convenience stores.  After a request to City Manager Allen Gill to further examine the city's definition of a grocery store, the board voted 5 to 1 to approve and send on the grocery store ordinance to the liquor control commission and city council.  I had to leave at that point so am not sure if they voted on the comprehensive ordinance as well, though from the conversation as I was leaving, I doubt it.

Liquor License Caps Remain

Missed teh city council meeting last night so did not get to see the reaction when no one seconded Frontabarger's motion to raise the city liquor license cap. I think that is the first time, at least that I recall, that a motion has died in council for lack of a second.

From the article, I can't tell if Mayor Fritzler was truyly suprised on just disengenious with his comment regarding council members commenting on the issue during council comments:

"If you didn't want to discuss it when it was an agenda item, why discuss it now?" Fritzler said.

Givne the described reaction of the crowd attending, of course the council members are going to want to explain their reasoning for the lack of a second of the measure.  Unless there has been a lot of behind the scenes negotiting regarding this, which from the way things turned out I doubt, there needs to be a lot more more put into crafting this ordinance, as putting it into place will affect the financal well being of a number ol long time Carbondale businesses.

Council Meeting

Missed the meeting last night, only getting there in time to talk with Councilman Lance Jack and council candidate Mike Riler afterward (and to get told by city manager Allen Gill that he could not discuss the circumstances regarding Beth Ponce's resignation/administrative leave).  The C'dale Times covered the council but spent all of its space discussing procedural problems during the meeting and the time  spent by Brent Ritzel and Pricilla Pimentel chiding the council for its choice of Lee Fronabarger as the replacement for Joel Fritzler.  Mayor Fritzler's plan to move citizen comments to the end of the meeting lasted all of about five minutes as council decided to put them on the agenda earlier, allowing Ritzel and Pimentel to have their say and not have to sit through the entire meeting.


The Southern, meanwhile, skipped over the Fronabarger discussion, focusing instead on the votes to ban the sale of  bath sales aka synthetic cocaine within city limits and to appoint the city manager as the hearing officer for the Liquor Control Commission.  Both passed, albeit with lots of discussion.

After the meeting,  Mike Riley indicated he planned to attended council meetings on a regular basis in the future, likely setting himself up for another run two years hence, whilst Jack said his attention, for the foreseeable future, was focused on acquiring his long sought liquor license for Fat Pattie's.

City Council Meeting

City Council meets tonight at 7 p.m.  Looks like the two big things on the agenda are a proposal to re-establish the position of Hearing Officer for the Liquor Control Commission and an ordinance outlawing the sale of bath sales/synthetic cocaine within the city limits.  Expect to see a number of people speaking about the Lee Fronabarger's appointment during the citizen's comments section of the meeting.

Council on Fronabarger

Emailed the city council members asking for their reasoning on the choice for Lee Fronabarger to serve out the remainder of Joel Fritzler's term.  No response from Lance Jack or Corine McDaniels.  Responses from Wissmann and Fritzler were pretty short indicating that the council had discussed the candidates and come to consensus on Fronabarger.

Adams and Monty gave more detailed responses.  Both felt that they had a strong pool of candidates to choose from but the major factors they felt distinguished Fronabarger were twofold:

1.  his service on numerous city committees, both citing his current service on the city's Planning Commission giving him insight into both city and business needs.

2.  his experience and involvement in writing the recently adopted city comprehensive plan.  As the comprehensive plan became an issue in the mayoral election, with various candidates either viewing the plan as an idealistic starting point (Mahoney) or blueprint for future city action (Ritzel), Adams and Monty both felt that Fronabarger's work with the plan would be valuable as the council works to improve the quality of life in Carbondale.

In response to a followup question about lobbying for candidates for the position, no council member reported contact by any member of the community to argue for the appointment of any of the seven people to applied for the position, though several did mention the topic arising in the course of other conversation.  The closest to any active advocating for any council replacement was a letter received by the council for someone who ultimately did not submit an application for the post.

Dump Fronabarger Movement

There's a group on Facebook formed to try to persuade Lee Fronabarger to resign his spot on city council and for the council to elect Tom Grant to the position.  From the page:

Tom Grant had the most votes for the fourth city council seat (he was only 8 votes away from winning the third city council seat), but instead of appointing a man with a huge amount of knowledge about how the city is run who had the obvious support of the citizens, they appointed Lee Fronabarger. Who is Lee Fronabarger? The guy the citizen's DIDN'T vote in.

1) Tell the city council that you are disappointed with their decision.
2) Ask Lee Fronabarger to represent his fellow citizens and respectfully resign and/or decline the appointment.
3) Tell the council to appoint the person the residents of Carbondale voted for, Tom Grant.
4). Help develop a referendum to change the law so that representatives will be ELECTED in the future, and NOT appointed.

It is rather hard, however, to make an argument that the will of the people was overruled when less than 3000 people turned out to vote, the will of the majority of the people apparently being to stay at home and watch TV.  Also notable is that the people making noise about this didn't bother to show up at the city council meeting at which Fronabarger was elected by the council to finish out Fritzler's unexpired term.

Thoughts on Fronabarger

Been musing on the choice of Lee Fronabarger to fill out Joel Fritzler's term on the city council.  I've asked several of the city council members for their reasoning and will comment on them later.  What follows is solely my reasoning.

According to the city's website, a total of seven people turned in letters of interest in the position:

Jessica Bradshaw, Priciliano Fabian, Carl R. Flowers, Lee M. Fronabarger, Thomas Grant, Navreet Kang, and Mike Riley..

 Of the seven, four--Bradshaw, Grant, Riley and Fronabarger--ran in the election.  Of the others, Fabian is a sophomore at SIUC and apparently active on campus but with no indication of city civic activity.  Kang chairs the city planning commission while Flowers serves on the Carbondale Park District board.  If I was on city council, I'd eliminate these three from selection simply because they did not run.  Bypassing the four people who did  run in favor of one of the three who did not would send a negative message so shortly after the election. (I have the same problem with Sheila Simon getting the nod for lt. governor in the last statewide election).

Looking at the four that ran, though both Riley and Bradshaw have been involved in Carbondale as buisnesspeople, neither has a track record of civic activity that I can find.  Grant worked for the city as building and services neighborhood services manager for 15 years and would bring a wealth of experience in those areas to the council while Fronabarger has served on a number of city committees including the aquatic center and planning commission.  Betwix the two of them, I would have picked Grant because of the experience with city operations he brought to the table, plus his razor thin finish behind Lance Jack in the election.  However, he has not been particularity active in city affairs since his termination in 2009, while Fronabarger has, which may have caused the council to choose him, that and the diverse views he can bring to city government a a result of his service upon various committees.. 

Lee Fronabarger Appointed

City council went into closed session for two hours tonight and emerged to vote, 6-0, to appoint Lee Fronabarger to serve the remaining two years of Joel Fritzler's term.  According to Mayor Fritzler, 7 hopefuls had turned in letters of application/resumes for the seat.  Only two of them that I saw, Tom Grant and Mike Riley, showed for the council meeting and waited around until council emerged from closed session to announce Fronabarger's appointment.  After council dismissed, Grant and Riley were last seen heading for The Office (local bar for you non-Carbondale types) in search of cold beer.

Update: Here's some more info from the Southern on the appointment..