Raw sewage pours into Centreville homes. Why won’t the mayor answer questions?
READ MORE
More coverage on flooding in Cahokia Heights
Expand All
Residents in northeastern sections of Centreville, who have been living for years with flooded basements and raw sewage in their yards, are looking to the city and its mayor for answers.
They say they’re not getting any.
Over the past three months, Mayor Mark Jackson and other city officials in Centreville have refused to comment to the Belleville News-Democrat for articles about the ongoing flooding issues, including this story. A reporter’s request for public records under the Freedom of Information Act has gone unanswered, despite the expiration of deadlines established by state law.
Centreville’s website provides an identical phone number for Jackson and each of the city’s four aldermen, but it rings to a central office extension that isn’t consistently answered. There is no voice mailbox available for messages.
Attempts to reach the four city aldermen at the email addresses listed on the city’s website are instantly returned with a message stating those addresses do not exist.
The first scheduled meeting of Centreville alderman since the BND and St. Louis Post-Dispatch published articles illustrating drainage and sewer problems in at least 54 homes in a 4.29 square-mile area of the city was canceled without notice or explanation.
And more than 40 residents of those houses, who have organized informally as Centreville Citizens for Change, say Jackson has refused their requests for a meeting. The group sent a letter to Jackson demanding that he discuss their issues and any plans the city has to assist them.
“They’re blowing us off,” said Centreville resident Walter Byrd, who has trenched his yard in an effort to drain a blend of storm water and sewage away from his house.
He had planned to attend the canceled Centreville City Council meeting, as he does regularly, to ask elected officials what they’re doing about the problems in his neighborhood.
“They don’t want to talk to nobody,” Byrd said. “They don’t care.”
U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth’s office said in February that it was seeking information from Centreville as part of its work to aid the residents in the area. A representative said on Monday said the senator is not yet prepared to comment on the extent to which the city has cooperated with her staff’s requests.
Raw sewage, toilet paper in Centreville yards
Citizens in the area say even moderate rainfall causes enough flooding that some are trapped in their homes for days. Storm water inundates the city’s aging infrastructure, causing raw sewage to back up into yards, some of which are flooded in brown water and littered with toilet paper and tampons.
The damage is extensive, expensive to repair and a drain on property values. Many Centreville homes have been abandoned. Those who remain live with the stench that hangs over their neighborhood and concerns for their health, they say.
In their letter to Jackson, the resident group describes being stranded in their homes on rainy days, standing floodwater and sewage that takes weeks to drain away has ruined homes and weakened foundations.
“We do not have the money to make these repairs,” the letter says. “Even worse, even if we repaired our homes, as we have sometimes managed to do in the past, we know it will happen again because the unfixed problem is a City and County level problem.”
The Citizens for Change letter asks Jackson what long- and short-term steps were being taken to fix the problems, what state or federal grant money is available that may be used to repair the city’s sewer system or provide relief from the expense of restoring their damaged properties.
Centreville mayor focused on city merger
Byrd, who is the co-president of Centreville Citizens for Change, said Jackson told him over the phone that he would address the group’s concerns at a town hall meeting about a March 17 referendum that would merge Centreville with neighboring Alorton into a single municipality called Alcentra.
Jackson, Alorton Mayor JoAnn Reed and Centreville Township Supervisor Curtis McCall Sr. each have spoken in favor of a merger, which they say could someday include Cahokia. They’ve each told residents at public meetings and through the mail that the merger would strengthen their collective voice politically and qualify them for additional state and federal revenues.
When asked at the February town hall meeting if the new money could be used to help with the flooding issues, Jackson replied that he was there to discuss the merger only.
Byrd says he hasn’t heard from Jackson since.
He and other residents of the citizens’ group say they will not support the proposed merger because they’ve been provided no information about how it would help them.
“How can we trust them?” Byrd said. “If the merger gets approved, we’re just gonna keep having these problems.”
In the letter to Jackson from Centreville Citizens for Change, residents say their neighborhoods are treated as another town.
“It is not lost on us that we live on separate sides of Centreville from you. To you and many of your alderman, our issues are worlds apart from what you encounter daily and thus, not urgent to many of you,” the letter read. “However, these issues have taken over our lives, stripped us of our livelihoods, devastated our finances and, for many of us, created disastrous consequences for our health.”
Unanswered requests for public information
Public officials in Centreville also have not returned dozens of messages from the BND requesting information or comments and have failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the BND. Jackson told a reporter at one of the town hall meetings that he didn’t have time to talk, but would call him at the number the reporter provided. That call never came.
In its FOIA requests, the BND has asked for any emails city officials have sent or received regarding the flooding or raw sewage. Deadlines outlined in the act for the release of those public records passed more than two weeks without acknowledgment that they had been received.
The State of Illinois’ Office of the Attorney General has intervened on behalf of the BND by pressing the city by letter to provide some response to the requests for information. Centreville has until Wednesday to let the Illinois Attorney General’s office know whether it has received and responded to the BND’s Feb. 7 request.
A reporter attended the canceled meeting of the Centreville City Council on Feb. 3 with intent to ask elected officials for comment on the flooding issues. Three additional messages left for Jackson were not returned.
A woman who answered the phone at city hall Tuesday, who identified herself only as “Miss Jones,” said the city does not reschedule meetings. Then she hung up the phone on the reporter who asked.
The Belleville News-Democrat also has submitted a FOIA request to obtain a copy of the publicly-funded feasibility study of the proposed merger and is awaiting a reply.
No financial reports filed
Centreville also has not filed required financial documents with the Illinois Comptroller’s office for the last three fiscal years, according to the state agency’s website.
Jayette Bolinski, a spokeswoman for the comptroller, said in an email to the BND that the state official has tried to contact Centreville by leaving messages and sending reminder emails.
The most recent contact the agency had with Centreville was a Jan. 17 email “reminding them they are delinquent on annual financial reports and audits,” Bolinski said.
Staff from the comptroller’s office even visited Centreville government offices in person on Nov. 20 to speak with the mayor or city clerk, neither of whom were available, according to Bolinski. She said the comptroller’s staff eventually talked to Centreville finance officer Lamar Gentry, who told them he would work on the tax increment financing reports.
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 5:10 AM with the headline "Raw sewage pours into Centreville homes. Why won’t the mayor answer questions?."
