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City leaders share visions for where community center search goes

The proposal to renovate the Broad Street Armory into a type of community center was shelved by Galesburg City Council earlier this month and from here city leaders have different ideas on how to proceed.

Mayor John Pritchard emphasizes the city’s need for an updated comprehensive plan for the parks and rec department.

“That process will establish what some of the needs are in the community and what things we may have that we don’t need and things that we don’t have that we do need,” Pritchard says.

Pritchard vows to still look for uses for the National Guard Armory building.

Still, his belief is the city needs to look at “all available options” before making any kind of decision moving forward.

Local restaurateur Walt McAllister, running against Pritchard for mayor in April has continually championed Galesburg’s need for a community center.

“The mayor has shown specifically that he is clearly uninterested in even having a community center,” McAllister says. “It’s been three years.”

He says a center should be flexible to meet changing needs, but right now a place for youth and seniors to meet is high on that list.

Ward 4 Alderman Corine Anderson said part of what she found appealing about the Armory as a community center was it’s central location, something McAllister joins her on.

Anderson envisions a community center meeting multiple needs for citizens.

She would like to see it have viable after-school options for youth, access to computers for information and job searching and a place for seniors to meet.

Also she would like the council to explore what other communities are doing in this regard.

“I think the young people don’t have as many options as they would like where they really feel comfortable coming together and doing those types of things,” Anderson says.

Ward 6 Alderman Wayne Allen however feels that various locations around town collectively meet the needs that a community center would satisfy already.

“I think we keep looking and someday something will come where we have a steadfast policy of what to do with the Armory instead of just guessing on it,” Allen says.

He says he’s one received a single call urging for a community center in the roughly three years since the old one shutdown, now the location of Iron Spike Brewing Company.

Anderson insists she doesn’t want to spend an “arm and a leg” for a community center but says municipalities often “bear some of the expense for citizens to provide resources to citizens with few.”

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